Measures of Reconciliation
by Aimless Traveler
Summary: In the midst of the Apocalypse, the Winchesters take the first steps toward reconciliation while Lucifer tempts his brother with the cruelties and psychosis of a place where no angel of God should ever be held captive. AU, sequel to "Brotherly Discord."
1. Job

_A/N: Hello, all! Here's the fifth story in the 'Six Dawns' series, following 'Brotherly Discord' and the tag on 'Broken'– but picks up in the middle of episode 5.06. As a forewarning, this story is going to contain some heavy content in regards to drug use; therefore there'll be some stylistic differences in the writing at certain times. Enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: Supernatural is Eric Kripke's but in lieu of the most recent episode, I must make this clear: __**this version of Gabriel is mine. **__M'kay? He is __**NOT**__ the Trickster in my universe. And I guess while I'm at it, I'll claim Belial too. :)_

_There was naught here but darkness, the color of sin and nothingness all around him, twisting icy fingers around the faintly gleaming dimness inside his soul; a candle's flickering flame nearly gone and he couldn't fight it, didn't have the strength to keep it at bay. He was exhausted and spent and there was no reason to continue the struggle anymore- perhaps it would be better to just lay down quietly and perish but the sweetly seductive voice pounding in his skull and weaving intricate patterns through his soul wouldn't leave him be and where was- why couldn't he… _

_He'd always been able to feel the light of his Father through His creations but encased within these confines of a prison of skin and bones that were too easily broken, faith was but a word and he couldn't hear his brothers or sisters singing praise anymore; he cried out unintelligibly, his own words garbled and voice weak… There was too much pain here because the human body was intricately made and yet so fragile, nerves screaming out so loud, louder than the shameful guttural croaks rolling from his throat; he couldn't hold out anymore, he wanted to go back Home because this place, this __**place**__ was even worse than Hell and he needed to feel the warmth of his Father's mercy and grace, he needed to feel the love of his brother's embrace-_

"_Abba,_" came the rattling gasp, a harsh plea torn from Castiel's throat, the desperate cry of a soul shattered, of one who had carried the weight of the world upon his shoulders and crashed to his knees, knocked down one too many times and was now incapable of getting back up. Dean's heart seized in his chest because the position was too familiar, an angel splayed out facedown in his lap like Michelangelo's pieta reversed or something (although the elder Winchester sure as hell was no Virgin Mary); his mind whirled with the terrible image of a Castiel whose glazed eyes reflected an emptiness fogged over by drugs, frozen fingers clutching at the hunter in his final agonizing moments-a vision that was so _wrong_-

Except this time there were no bloody holes punched through skin and flesh by lead, no bloody gashes or broken bones that were visible to the human eye but Dean knew they were there, the invisible wounds that were dragging up the gut-wrenching sobs from the depths of a soldier who'd simply endured too much (_pain torment abuse temptation)_, sacrificed too much of himself, lost too much (_Heaven home faith hope)_; the weeping of an abandoned child.

_Cas…_ Fingers were digging into his thigh so hard that Dean winced. His voice stuck in his throat and he was incapable of speaking or even touching the twitching, battered figure that lay prostrate over his lap, for fear of causing the other more unspeakable torture. One of Castiel's hands was clenching onto the hunter like he was the only solid thing in a world flipped upside down and turned helter skelter, the fingers of his other hand flexing spastically in the water that rained down from above and surrounded them both; his shoulders were shaking and Dean could feel the tremors of shock and exhaustion wracking his abused frame, could feel the other's ribs through the thin shirt as the angel's breaths came wheezy and about as easily as an asthmatic's after running a mile. "_El Shaddai, checed…Abba-_"

Droplets of moisture trickled down the back of his neck and seeped under the cotton of his shirt, plastering his hair to his skull, clumping on his eyelashes and slipping down along the contours of his jaw when he blinked. And at the moment, that was all Dean Winchester could do as he knelt on the cold linoleum floor in about an inch and a half of standing water, the blaring of a fire siren in his ears and with disgustingly taupe colored walls rising up on either side and stretching out down a hallway that seemed to go on forever, barely holding a terrified, _sobbing_ angel of the Lord together in his arms. He stared past the bodies of unfortunate bystanders littering the corridor and the shattered glass covering the floor, not having to squint at the individual at the other end despite the flickering dimness of cracked or broken florescent lights from above because he knew exactly who it was.

"_The name is Belial, Dean Winchester, and remember it well- because it's the one you'll hear Castiel __**screaming**__ when I __**fuck**__ the angel right out of him."_

How in God's name had things come to this?

* * *

_Three weeks ago:_

"_You _didn't," Castiel more or less growled uncharacteristically, grinding out the words one by one like they were gravel between his molars, sapphire eyes fixed darkly on Sam. Dean knew that look; it was the same glower that had been upon the angel's face almost a year ago in the darkness of Bobby's kitchen, the _I'm __**will**__ smite you so you'd better show me some respect_ glare, easily trumping Sam's epic bitchface number twenty-one, although Castiel's vessel was a clear four or five inches shorter than the younger Winchester. "And-I-can't-take-that-chance."

Sam looked about ready to explode as the words were bitten out one by one; a vein pulsed dangerously in his temple and his nostrils were flaring as he struggled to control his temper. Dean's eyes strayed down toward the floor because he knew this was no longer the power-hungry stranger who went out and cavorted around with a demon bitch; this was _Sammy _who was doing all he could to atone for his sins of the past, trying to give a smart, innocent little kid the chance to do right by giving him the information he himself had not known- a stab at redemption.

Here was the little brother Dean had practically raised, the one he'd looked out for, ever since running out of a burning house twenty-six years ago. There were a lot of years and memories and pain along with the good times between them two but hey, it was worth it all because blood was thicker than water, right?

When it all came down to the wire, Dean knew he would do anything for his brother- after all, he'd already gone to Hell for the kid; he dared anyone else to say that _that_ wasn't the greatest act of sacrifice one could perform. Sam was his brother, and there was no way an angel of the Lord would ever replace his Sammy.

But there was no way for him to take sides. No, the angel wasn't and wouldn't ever be Sam- but it was because Castiel knew everything about Dean, absolutely every _single_ shameful sin he'd ever committed, every terrible thought; he knew the names and faces of the souls the elder Winchester had taken apart in the depths of Hell- and he stayed all the same, he _stayed_ and faced down a freakin' archangel and rebelled against the wrath of Heaven for his flawed mess of a charge. The bond between human and celestial was not based on or through biology; it started with ever-merciful redemption and salvation through a hand burning of pure fire and holiness, slowly building up by episodes of misunderstanding and error, of initial friction eased slowly by a faith and hope and a _trust_ so unparalleled that it was almost unreal.

"_If there is anything worth dying for, this is it."_

"_I killed two angels this week. Those are my brothers. I'm hunted now; I've rebelled, and I did all of it for __**you**__."_

At times, Dean forgot that Castiel was a being who could burn demons and other supernatural sons of bitches into nonexistence by lifting one finger, who carved intricate sigils into people's ribs as easily as one-two-three, who radiated otherworldliness like a humming power generator of a strength so raw and undeniable and yet so _pure_, so unlike any other dick with wings that Dean had ever met before that he often forgot they were one and the same. Oh sure- it was easy to see sometimes, like when Castiel trapped and faced down an archangel and told the dick exactly what was up, the fact that he'd been reduced to nothing but the charcoal shadows of wings against a concrete floor and had somehow been resurrected, and the same appearing and disappearing out of thin air act that never seemed to get old.

But upon other occasions- like when pulling him into a hug of relief (stupid trench coat and all) and telling him to never change, or when sitting in a seedy so-called "den of iniquity" and seeing the angel's blue eyes open wider than a pair of dinner plates in comical terror at the sight of a push up bra- suddenly he wasn't Castiel, angel of the Lord anymore. Dean didn't know how it happened, but all of a sudden the other was just Cas; the holy tax accountant with no concept of personal space, the Cas who was always there whenever help was needed, the Cas who didn't know how to pass as a normal person to save his life let alone an FBI agent, and all of that was okay. Was it really that hard to believe that the thought of losing he who'd slowly but surely become as important to the elder Winchester as Sam was had hit Dean like a fist in the gut, had made him almost dumb with shock at the prospect of no longer seeing that ridiculous head tilt and sharp sapphire eyes that were too blue and too pure, too filled with faith and goodness for anyone?

And here he was, staunchly defending and seeking to protect those who'd tossed him out to the dogs after using him as merely a means to an end; and surely not even Locke could've agreed that the friggin' Apocalypse was a justifiable goal. The Host of Heaven was nothing but a bunch of heartless sons of bitches, turning around to hunt down and destroy one of their own after already wasting him once- so why the hell did Castiel care at all?

Dean was suddenly aware of the fact that it was all too quiet in the room and he felt the weight of two stares on him and- _Aw, shit. Don't tell me I just said that last part out loud..._ But apparently, judging from the faint look of surprise on Sam's face, he had and if there was any doubt at all, it flew out the window as soon as the hunter glanced toward the angel and found himself being pinned down by the same glare that was capable of making the great Dean Winchester quake in his boots and an angry hiss that could turn one's bones into dust- _"So __**keep**__ your opinions to __**yourself**__"_-

"Those 'heartless sons of bitches' are _my_ brothers," Castiel said now in a low voice, staring straight at Dean and the hunter had the feeling of being an ant under the magnifying glass of a really ticked off kid. "Their welfare is my concern."

This was what was most admirable and yet frustrating at the same time about the angel: his sheer blind faith and stupid loyalty; both of which would land him in serious hot water someday and now more than ever before because both Heaven and Hell were on his ass now, wanting to screw him over just as much as the Winchesters he'd aligned himself with. Dean wanted to grab the angel and shake him hard, to punch some sense into that thick skull of his, broken hand be damned.

"Yeah? And you think _your_ welfare is any of their concern? You think they'll stop trying to hunt you down? Help you out in a pinch?" He scoffed at the absurdity, for once wishing that Castiel wasn't so damn hopeful (_this time for his sake, really_). "Or, hey- maybe they'll even come when you call." Sapphire eyes narrowed, daring him to continue and Dean knew he was pushing it but to hell with it; he didn't care. "Face it Cas, it's not like any of your brothers give two shits about you and you _know_ it."

The younger Winchester had sensed the shift in the air between his brother and the angel as they addressed each other; whereas before there had been unspoken tension sparking in the air now there was trust and a degree of friendliness, of understanding. Certainly the angel had never looked upon him with such ease or familiarity and that part was to be expected; after all there were times these days Sam couldn't even pluck up the courage to look himself in the mirror, and of course there remained the inescapable fact that he'd once tried to rip the guy's ribs out of his back. Sure, he'd just been glaring at Castiel like he had the right to do so (hell, he wasn't about to _kill_ a little kid!) but even as the angel glared back with an icy glower that made the six-foot four hunter feel like a mere three feet tall, Sam hadn't missed the way the antagonism and anger had slid away as easily and naturally as water off a duck's back when the softened gaze turned upon Dean.

He had no right to be jealous (and he wouldn't allow himself to be caught that easily again, given that the green-eyed monster was the reason he'd been tricked into torturing an angel of the Lord in the first place), but he was admittedly surprised at the change and wondered just how much occurred in his absence and exactly what his older brother and the angel went through together.

In the silence that followed Dean's words, Sam had halfway expected the TV to turn itself onto eardrum-piercing white noise, for the light bulbs to shatter in their sockets or the neon sign outside to spark and sizzle and he was ready to duck and cover or get the hell out of dodge in a hurry- but what he didn't expect was the flash of something inexplicable across the angel's face, something much too clear and far too human displayed there, raw and naked as Castiel's lips pinched tight, as his Adam's apple bobbed up and down once in a hard swallow. He'd been expecting a hellfire and brimstone speech of wrath, but he wouldn't have been able to boast of being prepared for the whisper of denial that came instead.

"That…" Sam flinched then, shoulders stiffening because the younger Winchester really did _not_ need to hear what it sounded like to hear an angel's voice, normally so commanding, actually _breaking._ Castiel steeled himself, a muscle in his jaw jumping, mouth opening. "…That is _not_ true."

Dean saw it too, for there was guilt and worry in the elder Winchester's contrite expression. He stepped forward and opened his mouth to say something- an apology, a recant, _anything_- remembering too late a scruffy-faced and hazy-eyed Castiel whose brothers _had_ left him five years into the future, who was filled with nothing but flat sarcasm and a defeated cynicism with hope so far gone that the memory squeezed the hunter's chest painfully tight even now. "Cas, I didn't-"

He was answered by the soft beating of wings that seemed swifter than normal, left blinking at the rush of displaced air as the angel disappeared and Dean bit his tongue, hard. _Goddamn it.

* * *

_

He watched the glass of water fall from small fingers slackened in shock to shatter upon the hardwood floor below, sending its liquid contents spilling everywhere. There was fear in the child's face, stark terror undisguised by familiarity or pride as his eyes rounded, huge brown orbs fixed upon the stranger who'd appeared in the foyer without a sound.

"Don't be afraid," Castiel murmured in a low voice, the remorse in his features bleeding into the angel's attempts at a placating tone. "I won't hurt you."

Jesse's mouth opened and closed in a silent gasp as his feet faltered backwards, wide-eyed gaze never leaving the sudden new arrival walking toward him; this man who resonated an ethereal quality so alien that even this young member of humanity understood that there was something different about this penetrating sapphire gaze, something great and awe-inspiring; something to be respected and to be feared. After all, the unseen and cloaked spectator mused, how was it possible not to identify Castiel's unblemished soul as a breed apart from these lowly mudmonkeys?

"Mom! Dad!"

_Ah, yes._ He cocked an eyebrow, blue-grey gaze traveling from the spawn of his right hand man- or demon if you will, the lord of lust had gotten a huge kick out of impregnating a virgin- to the young one who had managed to captive his attention in the halls of Heaven without even striving to do so. _And what did you do with the boy's parents, I wonder? _The easiest and most convenient possible course of action would have been to end their existences, as to avoid any mishaps. But somehow, he didn't think Castiel was one to choose that alternative.

"Your mother and father are sleeping," came the gentle assurance, quietly insistent. "I assure you they won't wake until morning."

_Little brother, how so very predictable you are._ And he smiled then, smiled because of _course_ Castiel would have done such a thing, sending Jesse's guardians off into a state of restful unconsciousness so as to spare them the anguish of losing their child because that was exactly what the lesser angel had been like since the very beginning. Always trying to do what was right, always so eager to please Almighty God and the older brothers whom he so admired, always so full of hopeful (albeit utterly blind) faith. Sweetly ignorant Castiel who had nary a disobedient tendency or deviant thought against the Father he'd never even seen or the orders he received; innocent little Castiel who followed the Lord's messenger and his favorite brother around, blue eyes wide with admiration and naivety; Castiel the resilient fighter who thought nothing of his own self so long as he carried out the word and will of _el Shaddai_, of Lord God the Almighty.

"…I'm sorry," Castiel breathed, soul flickering with uncertainty and remorse, overcome with guilt and yet focusing on the noble task of doing what would help to preserve the brethren who wished his destruction, but for whom he still loved. Lucifer shook his head piteously as the lesser angel's hand and resolve faltered momentarily, hesitating at the sight at the terrified little half-human, half-demon boy. _Oh little brother…having a heart hurts, doesn't it?_ The knife fell then and Jesse reacted instinctively out of fright, but the Son of Perdition departed from the scene, not caring as to the fate of the boy or even reacting to the Winchesters who were rushing up the path and bursting into the house. Such trifling matters could wait until later for right now, there was only one thought weighing heavily upon his mind.

_Castiel, Castiel…what am I to do with you?_

Apparently a lot had changed since he last saw Castiel last as the lesser angel fought bravely in the Battle of Heaven under Gabriel's watchful eye because here he was standing all alone, having rebelled against the Host and already having perished once because of it. While Satan still sensed the same strong will and loyalty, it was also plain to see the weary and battered condition of the other angel's spirit; the confusion and loss of direction, for Dean Winchester was a less than adequate substitute for God the Father, no matter how much hope and faith Castiel had in the man. Zachariah was a fool indeed, because whereas the commander saw naught but a rebel and a weakling, Lucifer saw a perfect soldier and the epitome of a disciple in this little brother whose pure soul glowed with an allegiance and devotion so fierce that it made his being burn as beautiful and tragic as an exploding star- but more than that, he saw opportunity.

"_Have you considered my servant Job?"_

A contemplative smile came upon the features of the vessel of the great Tempter and Deceiver and he chuckled quietly into the night. _Dear little Castiel…do __**you**__ fear God for nothing?

* * *

_

When God the Father first took a handful of dust and molded it into His image, when He breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of the first man and declared His creation to be good, the Almighty gave but one command to the sons of sanctified flame and it was to serve and protect their earthly charges, to love them. However, the bright Morning Star's refusal to comply and the consequent Great Battle where brother struck down brother, where Michael succeeded in casting Lucifer and his followers from the hallowed halls of Heavens made it increasingly difficult to think anything the slightest bit amicable about the lower creatures whom were thought to be the cause of such disaster, much less _love_ them.

Many angels could not understand God's purpose for creating these disobedient, prideful beings and only the memory of Lucifer's punishment kept them from speaking out against these baffling, offensive _humans_. If the loss of their own kin wasn't already enough, man and woman proved themselves to be weak of mind and will, rebelling against the goodness and grace of their Father and rejecting all that had been given to them freely for sin and the pleasures of the flesh. The most powerful of the soldiers of the Lord folded themselves away into the holiness of Heaven and far from the dirtiness of the created realm below, waiting for the day when God would do away with all the unrighteous and their sullied ways in a wave of holy wrath and bloodied flame, when Paradise would reign upon both Heaven and Earth.

Few were the number among the Host who strove to do as they were originally commanded, actively seeking out ways to serve and protect humanity, unless instructed to do so by the Most High. The messenger archangel was one of their number, having appeared to the prophet as an interpreter, to the High Priest and Virgin as an emissary, and was generally regarded by mankind as not only he who stood at God's left hand, but also as the angel of mercy.

No one was really surprised then, when Gabriel's little protégé took after his elder brother in looking over the human race and their affairs- not so much in patronage as with wonder and awe in his naively round, big blue eyes.

"_These people…they're all my Father's creations. They're works of art."_

He'd spent countless millennia observing these fascinating beings his Father created, gazing upon them from within the security of Heaven's perimeter and Gabriel's wing. He was watching when singing out the praises of Christ's arrival one cold spring night over the fields surrounding Bethlehem, looking out through the eyes of the Canaanite farmer, the Persian servant boy, the Roman statesman, the radio ad salesman.

So was the natural order of things; he kept watch, just as the Lord commanded, and did nothing but watch unless given an order to act. Even when reduced to a mere four and a quarter inches and transformed into a figure made of plastic resin and polypropylene instead of flesh and bone, Castiel could do nothing but stand stiffly where careful fingers placed him upon the mantelpiece, silently bearing witness to the unfolding scene.

"_Because I have to believe someone can make the right choice, even if I couldn't." _

"_Look, uh…truth is, he's kind of a buddy of mine." _

And so watch he did; even after thankfully being restored to Jimmy Novak's form and constitution but departing without a word of notification. Even now as he stood here in the quiet parking lot outside the Winchester's motel room, blue eyes pierced past waterlogged wood paneling and cheap plaster, peeling wallpaper and mothballed curtains to the brothers who had, between the two of them, condemned the entire human race to utter destruction and yet were unwilling to kill perhaps the second greatest threat to Heaven after Lucifer himself. The angel's brow wrinkled slightly. It was interesting that, despite all his time spent scrutinizing humanity, Castiel had yet to learn to ways of mankind and still knew nothing on how to view the world with a screened perspective through a telescope broken and blurred out of focus.

Or perhaps this solitary angel who had his eyes opened by the one he first saved; this angel who was so uniquely unlike the rest of his kin who were too busy giving up on each other and on their absent Father, who had turned his back on his family to stand alone bravely against the Host of Heaven for the sake of not the bigger picture, but the here and the freakin' _now_- wasn't all that clueless after all.

There was no one here to give orders and there was no God to be found at the moment- but there _was_ Dean Winchester, confident and strong and beautiful yet who would never believe his soul worth saving. And then there was Sam Winchester. Gone was the power-hungry boy with the demon blood who, blinded by his ambition, once chose a demon over his own brother and sought to destroy an angel of the Lord, gone and how replaced by a man hopeful and passionate and contrite, touched and cleansed in both body and spirit by the Father.

Castiel inhaled a deep breath of cool air as the light from within the motel room went out and movement ceased, turning away as he saw the two hunters settling underneath the lodging's threadbare coverlets, forgoing the usual "'night, Sammy" and it's answering reprise of "g'night Dean", both too weary and troubled by the events of past few hours to speak. However, despite the lack of a verbal exchange the air between the two was clear, the silence one of trust and mutual understanding.

Seeing the two brothers working together despite their past differences made something in the angel's chest ache, deep down and silent. It was the same ache Castiel felt when he awoke to find himself alone, _truly_ alone in this form, grace somehow miraculously restored but without Jimmy Novak's presence; he had felt it with knife in hand as he stared into Jesse's innocent, terrified face- but he'd felt it the sharpest at elder Winchester's earlier scoffing words and dismissive tone.

"_Face it Cas, it's not like any of your brothers give two shits about you and you __**know**__ it."_

"_GABRIEL!" He cried out as his brethren shredded his wings, brutally taking a hold of each appendage and renting it into countless irrecoverable pieces; the torture was too much to bear and Castiel's vision was growing dark at the edges although his form was being bathed in the glory of Heavenly wrath. Somewhere above the agony he heard Jimmy's screams of suffering before the man's weary and damaged soul was taken away to his rightful reward in the fields of the Lord and Castiel was sorry to have caused his host so much pain- but then Raphael was here, hand outstretched to do what Gabriel could not and where was his brother? Castiel wanted to weep but he had no voice and all that was exploded and then was shrouded in a veil of brilliant white- _

"Hello, Castiel."

The memory dissipated instantly and he went still, heart suddenly thumping double-speed as the blood rushed in his ears, all too human responses to the voice of the one who had the pride to speak out against God. _Lucifer._ The Light Bearer had never allured Castiel; far from it actually, for every instinct, every _nerve_ within him right now was screaming to move, to run, to _get away._ But the fact remained that the angel was unable to do anything save for stand there before his approaching former brother, powerless in the presence of such evil as Michael's vessel and Lucifer's true vessel lay slipping into dreamless unconsciousness not fifty yards away.

"You look weary, Castiel. Why are you here? Aren't you supposed to be looking for our Father?" The Devil asked quietly and conversationally. Oh, now that was apparently a sore point, for the lesser angel actually _bristled_, blue eyes narrowing. _I suppose the search isn't going so well now, is it? _He appraised the other thoughtfully, one eyebrow arched, unperturbed when he received no answer. "Maybe the reason you're here is to watch out for something…" The eyes were widening now, fear shining through the stoic countenance as the Lucifer's gaze flickered over to the motel- "…or watching over someone?"

_Dean. _Fueled by a desperation so raw that it easily superceded that which he felt when facing his own death, Castiel swiftly reached within his soul to draw out the power that stemmed from his grace to protect his charge and-

Lucifer held out his hands in a placating gesture as he walked closer to the lesser angel who now hung suspended in midair, eyes panicked and arms pinned firmly to his sides. "I'm not here for either of them right now; it's you I wish to speak with." With a slight inclination of his head he let the angel down gently onto the pavement, hands moving to settle comfortingly onto tense, frozen shoulders. "You've always intrigued me, Castiel," the former angel began, voice soft and alluring. "Ever-faithful to an absent Father, despite all that has already happened." _And I wonder what it would take to break such devotion? _

"Did you know that to own one's own body is to give permission to feel everything that goes along with it?" he murmured, lips brushing against the top of Castiel's head in a kiss promising pain, of devastation, of betrayal. Castiel struggled mutely, uselessly against the Devil's hold and Lucifer chuckled, low and quiet in the back of his throat. "Never been one to say much, but I can see everything in your eyes, Castiel." He raised a hand and cupped the back of the other's head, feeling the pulse jump and quicken under his fingers as the action brought their faces close together, his vessel's slate colored eyes boring deep into terrified sapphire blue. "We're not all that different, you and I." Castiel's soul trembled violently in protest at the claim and Lucifer drew back slightly, smiling gently, kindly. "Don't be afraid, little brother."

Cupping one hand under his captive's chin, Lucifer opened Castiel's mouth and leaned forward, blowing a single long exhale of breath into the other's mouth. The impure air tainted by the sin and unrighteousness of the Most Unclean passed into the angel's lungs and reached down to bind Castiel's grace in an impossible grip– a parody of the Almighty breathing the breath of life into the lungs of man- and the angel's eyes rolled back in his head, muscles slackening and his body going limp in the Devil's grasp.

"_Have you considered my servant Job?" the Lord asked. "There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And he still maintains his integrity, though you have incited me against him to ruin without any reason."_

_Satan replied, "Ah, but does Job fear God for nothing? Stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, even his flesh and bones, and he will surely curse you to your face." _

_The Lord said to Satan, "Very well then, he is in your hands; but you must spare his life."

* * *

_

She watched silently as the scene played out in the dimness and shadows of the single overhead street lamp and flickering neon lights of the motel's sign, slim hands pressing against her trembling lips to deter even the smallest shrieks of surprise or whimper of fright from escaping. The little girl remained motionless throughout the entire exchange, even as a white van drove into the parking lot and as the limp form of the dark-haired man was stripped of his clothing and dragged into the back of the vehicle, pressing as far back against the solid wall at her back as she could when slate blue-grey eyes passed casually over to the row of motel room doors.

A tiny gasp slipped out of her mouth as the man disappeared and the van turned out of the parking lot and down the street, driving away into the night with its new captive. She crept forward after a moment, shivering in her flimsy pink and white paisley patterned nightgown, her bare feet tip toeing daintily across the cool black gravel over to the pile of clothes heaped on the ground. A pale, slender arm reached out tentatively, fingers brushing against the material of a dark blue tie, still warm from its previous wearer.

The little girl shivered, clenching the cheap fabric in a small fist, hesitating as to what to do next.

_A/N: I'm back! Sorry for the long wait, and I know this chapter was really dense, material-wise, but hopefully worth it._

_Things might be a tad bit confusing with the skipped episodes and all, but important information will be included by the use of a __**lot**__ of flashbacks. As usual, I love feedback and if you have a question, just ask! As a FYI, I'm sort of giving Belial a leave of absence for a while to explore Lucifer's character. Don't worry, he'll still show up but just not as often. Look for the next chapter this upcoming Thursday or Friday, but until then, please drop a review! _


	2. Joy

_A/N: Who's spoiled rotten? Me. Because I have such wonderful reviewers. I've missed you guys! Writing papers for a professor just isn't the same. Thank you for all your feedback; and welcome any newcomers! Enjoy the chapter!_

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel and Belial belong to me. _

It was a machine, a mechanism to bring stability after the fact and a way to wipe the slate clean. Though the act of simply existing, it had the power to ruin men of great power of uplift the everyday individual to a position of high esteem, had the ability to span on for decades at a time or curl in upon itself and die without warning. The end result usually amounted to monumental social change, shifting bell curves in population graphs and a whole slew of songs and tributes to a fallen generation; the products of a clash and engagement of arms and flesh and blood that never really seemed to justify the means.

No matter which way one looked at it, war had always been and would always be a tragedy. Never mind the valor and bravery of the millions of young men and women who voluntarily laid down their lives for honor and glory and country. In a way, their service was almost selfish, for most of them came back in caskets draped with the colors of their nation, receiving their just rewards as their souls were led to the fields of everlasting peace and tranquility and leaving behind loved ones who left with nothing but old photographs and dusty, half-forgotten memories. The same couldn't be said for those that made it through the war alive though, survived and in return for sleepless nights and days filled with paranoia and the images of their friends and comrades getting blown apart into bloody piles of limbs, received pieces of hammered metal or little strips of ribbon. For the survivors, war wasn't only a tragedy- it was the freakin' end of the world as they knew it.

And that was exactly how Sam Winchester felt, standing there and staring at the taped off and barricaded area of the ruined hospital wing, gaping at the building that seemed like something out of Black Hawk Down instead of the suburbs outside Springfield, Illinois. Sure, the end of the world started when he ganked Lilith and unleashed the Devil himself into the world, but still…

"What the hell?" he whispered, then immediately winced at the inappropriateness of the slip of the tongue, because those were so _not_ the right words to be saying right now.

It looked like the cops and forensic scientists had already come and gone, as had the gaggle of spectators and news reporters after ascertaining there was no evidence pointing to a terrorist attack but for all intents and purposes, it looked like it nonetheless. The entire building seemed like it had been cloven in two by some holy strike of lightening from above- or maybe a giant meat cleaver in the hands of an angry God- one side in pristine condition, complete with working electrics and plumbing, the other half looking like it had been hit by a rocket smack dab in the middle of civil-war ridden Beirut.

_**This **__was where we're supposed to find Cas?_ His feet felt like they were rooted into the ground because although he'd never traveled overseas on tours of duty in service of his country or engaged in military combat, Sam had been raised as a soldier and had spent his entire life fighting a war of epic scale and proportions: the invisible against the visible, right versus wrong, good against evil. This was what John had trained his sons to be and no Winchester needed the label of being a GI Joe or boot camp to know that the only thing anyone would find in the mass or rubble and debris in front of them was a whole of casualty or nothing at all.

To his right though, Dean didn't even bother sparing him a glance as the elder Winchester ducked underneath the crime scene tape, heading into the heart of the aftermath of the destruction with a distinct air of urgency and a hint of panic that was just barely showing through from under the surface. "Cas?" He called, picking his way through the mess of fallen plaster and twisted metal frames, dodging sparking bits of wire and pulling at pieces of the wreckage with his bare hands. "Cas!"

"Dean-"

"**Don't**, Sam," Dean bit out, and not without a definite curtness that reminded Sam (a little bit too much) of their father, of John's tone when one of them was careless enough to get injured on a hunt for some stupid reason or another, and the undertones of _I don't want to hear it_. "Just get over here and help, will you?"

And so he did, feet stumbling in his haste to follow his brother's example and his voice, doing exactly what Dean said without a word of complaint or protest; because the last time he hadn't listened to his brother, he went so far beyond the realm of screwing up that there wasn't even a correct term to describe what he'd done. Just like he'd done for nearly two decades before heading off to Stanford, and just as he'd done in the four years following Jessica's death, before his brother suddenly wasn't there anymore, having gone to Hell for his sake.

But the circumstances were different this time around; they weren't investigating poltergeist activity or evidence of some ghost having too much fun scaring the hell out of people- they were rooting around in the ruins of a building where the forces of Heaven touched down, looking for their only angelic ally who'd last been seen facing down a freakin' _archangel_. Well that was the last Dean had seen of him anyway and Sam winced because the most recent memory _he_ had of Castiel was…

_His hands were slick with blood and there was nothing but the feel of his fingers ripping through skin and vein and tendon, nothing but glassy sapphire eyes boring into his, clouded with pain but an infinite mercy and kindness and he choked because he wasn't worthy of this, he wasn't worthy of anything from this being of light and righteousness; he was the boy with the demon blood, remember? _

"_The Lord forgives you for what you have done, Samuel. As do I." _

His foot caught on a piece of jagged rubble and the younger Winchester cursed as he lurched forward, managing to land in an odd half-crouched position instead of flat on his face. _Day just keeps getting better and better, doesn't it?_ His hands came to rest on disturbing stickiness and as he raised his head, Sam caught sight of what looked like the epicenter of a nuclear explosion; blood splatter in place of the napalm and the mushroom cloud of radiation replaced by twin outlines of charcoal shadows burnt into the jagged concrete, torn and twisted at different angels, distinctly feather-shaped scorch marks scattered and imprinted upon surfaces everywhere.

* * *

He woke abruptly, as if shaken from a nightmare or roused by a hand on his cheek or a whisper in his ear, the vestigial breath of an unseen messenger ghosting across his skin. He cast a sideways glance first at the glowing red numerals of the digital clock (_seven o'clock, really?_) and then at the other bed, where Dean still lay half-hidden and breathing steadily under the crumpled covers, trying to figure out why he'd woken up. For some reason his brain really didn't feel like working that morning though, and he supposed that it might have had something to do with the way it was pounding relentlessly against the sides of his skull. All of his muscles were protesting any type of movement despite the fact that he was still lying quite still, blinking away the sleep from his eyes and staring up at the dark water stain on the ceiling shaped a bit like Australia. _Well, I guess that's what you get when you sign up to get tossed around like a beach ball by a seriously irritable demon. Good thing Jesse-_

_No. Not going to go there._ Sitting up, Sam scrubbed wearily at his face and tried to rid his mind of the little boy with the big brown eyes who could exorcise demons with a word and turn angels into little action figures just by thinking it; the little boy who'd never had a chance because he was merely a tool for the forces beyond his control who'd already decided his future as the Antichrist _for_ him- but had made the right choice nonetheless… _Oh what the hell, I said I wasn't going to go there._ After a moment, he pushed the scratchy coverlet aside and made his way over to the door as quietly as a six-foot-four, two hundred twenty pound grown man could, bare feet padding against the floor as the door swung inward and he quietly slipped outside.

As the first rays of the morning sun barely peered out from over the horizon, the hunter stood still, gravel of the parking lot cool against his feet as the mist of dawn broke with the radiance of a new day. It was the beginning of what promised to be a beautiful day, and to anyone else it would've seemed exactly that. Sam knew better though; he knew that the sun heralded another twenty-four hours of the daily routine of hiding from the combined forces of the realms above and below, more endeavors of the sometimes seemingly futile search for the one weapon that could kill Lucifer, and staying on the run from the Devil himself. There was a strange hum in the air, a sort of tense atmosphere that the very earth itself seemed to exude; creation was holding its breath. Although things seemed peaceful now to the everyday average Joe, it was apocalypse now and no one understood this better than the one who had, albeit unknowingly, ensured the beginning of the end of times himself.

This last case had taken the two of them for a wild ride alright, for just after they'd started getting used to working as a team again, here came Heaven and Hell trying to split the Winchester brothers up again. Sam could still feel the laser beam-like intensity of iced over sapphire blue orbs glaring straight into him and past everything he knew himself to be, down into the deepest depths of his very _soul_. Castiel's eyes had been so cold, so cold that they burned; invisible tendrils of simultaneous muted anger and accusation mingled with the barely-there shred of the angel _wanting_ but ultimately unable to believe his fervent plea reaching out to fishhook the guilt and self-loathing buried in the darkest corner of his consciousness.

"_**You**__ didn't."_

And shit, if that hadn't been worse than a literal fist in the gut, worse than hearing Bobby's quiet growl of disowning him as a surrogate son- but of course, 'cause that had been the demon speaking, worse than Dean's distrustful gaze and tightly clipped words (_"You chose a demon over your own brother!"_) because the two of them were alright now. But having a freakin' _angel of the Lord_ look at you with something terrifyingly close to holy wrath that could've made even the biggest, baddest demon take notice and then condemning you with merely two words in a voice that spoke every language that existed or had ever existed was…something else.

More than that though, it was the fact that it was _Castiel _saying this to him, the one who'd pulled Dean from Hell, the one who'd even up everything just to help the two of them, the one supernatural being to whom Sam felt like he owed respect and reverence and whom could intimidate even when transformed into a child's toy. Here was the only angel among all the Host of Heaven who embodied (in his own certain way of course) all the characteristics the younger Winchester had imagined the messengers of God to have, here was all the faith and justice counterbalanced with mercy and wisdom, infinite understanding in the form of a rumpled beige trench coat and a sapphire gaze that never faltered, here was the kind of angel Sam believed to be under God's command, who listened when he prayed- and being denounced like that had _hurt_.

Dean hadn't been the only one who'd searched every corner of Jesse's semi-destroyed living room almost frantically for the small knife-wielding figurine after the boy had disappeared, and the elder Winchester certainly hadn't been the only one worrying about the angel's absence, although Dean had certainly been extra fidgety the entire drive; so much so that Sam had felt the need to tell his brother that Castiel was an angel, and that he could take care of himself. His brother's heated response, bursting forth like a dam under too much pressure, still rung in his ears now.

"_The hell he'll be fine. I've already left the stupid bastard behind once, and he ended up as a scorch mark on the floor thanks to those friggin' dick brothers of his." Dean's jaw clenched tightly, eyes fixed straight ahead even though his Adam's apple bobbed up and down in a hard swallow at the memory; his hands went even tighter on the steering wheel. "Sammy, it's just that…at least we've got each other to count on, to watch each other's backs. Cas, he…" The elder Winchester's voice wavered for an instant, and anyone else wouldn't have been able to perceive the split second falter, but Sam did. "He's got no one. Not anymore. And after all that he's done for us, we should at least try to be there for him." _

He heaved a heavy sigh, squinting against the bright rays of the now-risen sun, bathing the land of steel buildings and concrete ground upon which the doomed human race and emissaries from the supernatural walked in its bright glory. What Dean didn't understand was that he didn't have to explain, because Sam knew and understood Castiel's situation, understood being cast away by his brother and having no place to call home, no one to turn to; feeling lost and completely vulnerable despite having a dozen fake IDs and a Desert Eagle that would make most members of the NRA green with envy. _Of course Cas not showing up after Jesse disappearing is a little concerning, but considering that everyone else who was still alive and had been affected by the kid's powers went back to normal, I'm sure that he-_

A sudden creak sounded out to his immediate left and Sam reacted as any hunter would have, with a swiftness and dexterity usually reserved for only the very paranoid or the most well-trained soldiers on the battlefield after a sleepless night. When his eyes landed upon the source of the noise though, his fists instantly uncurled and he let his hands fall to his sides, feeling both relieved and foolish at the same time. _Well, at least I didn't have a gun on hand. _A pair of round brown eyes peeked shyly out at him from the slight opening of the door next to theirs and Sam had to agree with the little nagging voice in the back of his head that yeah, pointing a gun at a poor little kid and the inevitable trouble that would follow all thanks to his high-strung nerves would definitely not have been the best way to start the day.

He tried to smile at the little girl in a friendly and totally non-creepy way, realizing what an odd sight he must have presented, standing there in bare feet and nothing else but his pajama bottoms. Backtracking his own steps, the younger Winchester started to move back into the motel room, hand groping blindly for the doorknob. Instead of touching cold metal though, his fingers hit cloth instead and Sam glanced down, confused. _Oh. __**Shit**__. _

"Dean!"

He automatically pulled the sheet over his head, groaning in his head. _No, no, no. It's too friggin' early._ After safely dropping Jesse's mother back off at her house, Dean had resolved to get as far away from the Antichrist's house, not wanting to deal with the fallout of the kid's parents waking up to find their living room looking like someone had taken a wrecking ball to half of it and Jesse gone (not to mention that he _liked_ having his alone time without worrying about the consequences of some kid's belief in old wive's tales and his parents' lies). And to add onto that, as if driving for the entire night and half of the wee hours of the morning out of Nebraska and into Colorado wasn't already enough, he'd spent nearly two hours tossing and turning in bed long after Sam had started snoring, wondering and worrying about the look of hurt he'd seen flash across Castiel's face when he'd called the angels out as the heartless dicks they were.

Combine all of that with the fact that it was…Dean turned his head sideways, squinting slightly at the clock- _Christ, seven-fifteen? Really, Sam?- _he was so _not_ in the mood to be doing anything this in such a sleep-deprived state. Burying his face into the pillow, he made a face at the slightly mildew-like smell but didn't so much as twitch as he heard Sam walking over to the foot of his bed or when his brother nudged the mattress. "Dean, wake up."

"No," he mumbled, voice muffled against the pillow so that the word came out as _nrmph_. When Sam kicked at his bed again, the elder Winchester turned his face to the side, grumbling. "Lemme alone, Sammy; t's not even eight. I just drove like ten hours straight." _Five more hours of sleep, coffee, a burger, and then I'll be awake enough. _

"Dean, we-ah…we have a…problem."

Maybe it was something in the way Sam's voice tapered off slightly at the end, or the sudden feeling of foreboding that rolled over him like a wave crashing in upon itself- but for whatever reason, Dean was sitting up in bed half a second before his mind could even comprehend the pull of muscles and tendons that resulted in such a position. The hunter blinked the sleep out of his eyes, glancing from his brother's grim expression to the object Sam held in his enormous hands. "Sammy," the elder Winchester said slowly, blinking again for good measure and just to make sure his mind wasn't playing tricks on him, "mind telling me why the _hell_ you're holding Cas's tie?"

* * *

"_In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."_

Eyes moved under their closed lids, rapidly and from one side to the other, as if their owner was caught up in the throes of a vivid nightmare or merely settling into REM sleep. The girl glanced at the man lying in the bed before her own gaze flickered back to the chart she held; she chewed on the end of her red pen and checked off an empty square. Sunlight filtered in through the window and the bars slicing the soft beams cast horizontal shadows against the whiteness of the room, like a prison.

"_Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."_

_His thoughts returned piece by infinitesimal piece, fragmented segment by segment as murky and unclear as if gazing at all that which could be seen through a thin film of shaded, semi-opaque glass. There was a strange density weighing down his limbs, his wings, his very state of mind. Breathing in and of itself seemed an oddly unfamiliar task, not at all arduous, but as the air moved in and out of his expanding and deflating lungs, it seemed heavier in a sense and yet empty at the same time. Puzzled, he tired to locate the sensation in order to centralize and scrutinize it, but found that he could not. _

The man made an odd noise in the back of his throat, something that sounded like a mix between a groan and a sigh and as Cathy looked up from her chart again, his head turned to the side slowly, his brow furrowed and face tight with distress. Setting the clipboard aside, she walked around the side of the bed and carefully brushed away several stray strands of dark hair, placing the back of her hand against the patient's forehead.

"_And God said, 'Let there be light'…"_

_He recognized the darkness that he was slowly pulling himself from, as it was the same oblivion from which his soul stirred; reawaken by the mercy and everlasting grace of his Father's hand. However, this time when he reached out, his soul could detect nothing- not the faraway and yet ever-present song of his brothers and sisters, nor the flames of light and life that settled in the core of all of Creation. A small twinge of trepidation shot through his chest and surprisingly, he felt that dull ache more than anything else. Why did his entire sense of awareness seem to be muted or somehow diminished? _

_The images slipped one by one in front of his line of perception then, like frames in a moving picture show; there was the dimness of the motel room parking lot, and then the brilliant magnificence of Lucifer's presence, evil oozing from every single pore of his vessel; the Devil's gaze sliding over to where the Winchesters rested and the impulsive surge of panic and defense as he reached into his true heart, his grace- but then his former brother smiled, smiled and kissed him with lying lips and the breath of Sheol- _

His pulse thrummed strong underneath her fingers and Cathy gently set the patient's wrist back down. She moved to re-strap the limb back down with the restraints, but paused for a moment when a hiss of discomfort slipped past the patient's lips, when the cords in his neck stood out with strain and a pang of sympathy made her eyebrows draw together. The poor man was in pain.

"…_and there was light."_

Sapphire blue eyes snapped open and Castiel sat erect, nearly colliding foreheads with the young woman who was bending over him. With a startled scream, she stumbled backwards and fell, eyes wide and staring in fear. The angel glanced dispassionately down at his left wrist, which was being restrained to the bed he sat upon with thick leather straps and gave just a tiny _push_ with his power-

Nothing happened.

Castiel's eyes widened. _What is the meaning of this? _He turned to the frozen young woman and spoke, voice raspy and scratchy, the roughness of the sands of Egypt packed into the back of his throat. "What have you done to me?" He pulled at the strap hard, but found it no more yielding than a moment prior. "How did I get here?"

Cathy sat there, motionless and gaping as the man frowned at the restraint still binding his left wrist with all the intensity of Edison attempting his one thousand nine hundred and ninety-ninth try at inventing the incandescent light bulb, reaching over with his other hand to undo the buckles and slide the straps away. "Oh God," she babbled mindlessly, finally willing her limbs into motion and scooting backwards and away from the patient who had stood on unsteady legs and had now turned toward her, all of her training and knowledge of what to do in such a situation gone out the window. "Oh God, oh please don't hurt me, please, I'm begging you-"

The poor nurse gave a shriek of terror as her back hit the opposite wall and Castiel knelt down beside her, a bit taken aback at her frightened, blasphemous rant and confused as to why she seemed to fear him so much. "Don't be afraid," he said gently, reassuringly, drawing upon his grace as he reached out to pressed two fingers against her forehead in order to alter the young woman's state of mind, to momentarily halt the firing of neurons in order to send her into a peaceful state of unconsciousness. "I won't hurt you."

In the next few moments, many things happened in quick succession, and many things did _not_ happen as well. As soon as his fingers touched her forehead, the young woman let out a high-pitched shriek reminiscent of the yowl of a drowning cat and Castiel pulled back immediately, more stunned at the fact that she still remained awake than by her scream- "_ORDERLIES!!_"-Now he knew what it was he could not sense, knew why his body did not feel like his own, why the lights seemed dingy despite their fluorescent luminescence, why the air he breathed dragged in his lungs instead of seeming as clean and clear as the clouds surrounding the mountain over which he once flew, why he felt so disoriented and unstable, so…_human_.

"_Did you know that to own one's own body is to give permission to feel everything that goes along with it?" _

_No._ Castiel was on his feet so quickly that the room spun weirdly, but the angel was too busy focusing on trying to peer anxiously into his innermost being, searching for the tendrils of pulsing energy that flamed powerfully in his soul, desperately searching for the grace he'd once lost at the hands of Sam Winchester and that (he supposed) his Father returned unto him upon his resurrection- and was met only with the painful discovery that he could not do such a thing. When his gaze turned upon the woman once more, Castiel saw only her pale white face and trembling lips for he couldn't see beneath the surface in order to look into her soul. The angel could no longer see beyond or within, only these eyes that had once belonged to Jimmy Novak could interpret through the infinitely slow process of transduction between sensation and perception; he couldn't hear nothing but the sound of the woman's harsh, panting breathing and the rapid pounding of his own heart in his ears, couldn't sense the Father's light or righteousness- there was only the cold, hard touch of everything materialistic- and that, more than anything else, _terrified_ him.

His legs were wobbly and refused to stop shaking. Castiel tried to spread his wings to leave this unnamed place where he could not hear or touch or see or _feel_ as he had been able to do since his creation but his wings too were bound by invisible fetters, anchored tightly in that same hidden and inaccessible place where his grace was locked away; he was _trapped_ here- but by what means? Was this Lucifer's doing? Was the building covered in impenetrable demonic script or the Enochian sigil? What was-

"Got 'im!" He felt the rush of displaced air a second before two men were pressing him to the wall, their larger frames easily pinning his body against the surface and Castiel's mind whirled, spinning wildly back to- _There's only ever been you Cas, right from the fucking beginning and then there were fingers through which he could feel the evil of Hell's second prince leeching through the skin and into his soul, disgusting tongue flicking out against his flesh and the wandering hands that roamed everywhere with lustful and impure intentions and Belial growled, possessively marking __**his**__ angel-_

"Shit, he's strong; give him five milligrams of Diazepam-"

"I've already given 'im ten!"

"Well it doesn't look like it's doing much, does it? Damn it- give him another!"

The prick of the needle passing through skin came again and again, and the last fleeting though that passed through Castiel's mind as the cool rush of the drug entered into his bloodstream was as to the status of his charge and brother, for the Winchester boys and a prayer to his absent Father for their safety and deliverance. As his muscles went slack against his will, blue eyes rolled upwards to catch sight of the letters stitched in golden thread over the left breast pocket of one of the men's white shirt: PROWERS COUNTY PSYCHIATRIC WARD.

_Abba, Father. Hear me.

* * *

_

The blacktop crunched beneath the hunter's boots and searching emerald green orbs scanned the parking lot once again, passing over every single crack in the gravel and inspecting each and every car with a scrutiny worthy of Superman's laser gaze. Dean's mouth was dry; his heart banged against his ribs in a rapid rhythm as his fingers clenched tightly around the now-wrinkled cheap fabric of the dark blue tie, the only piece of his angelic ally he could find.

"_The HELL do you mean it was on the doorknob? Where'd you really find it, Sam?" _

"_I already told you, Dean. Why would I lie about something like this?" A beat passed, then- "Do you think that the other angels somehow found Cas and…"_

"_And left his __**tie**__ here as a parting gift? Don't think so." _

The elder Winchester tried not to think back to the terrible memory his mind had oh so wonderfully decided to dredge up when he first saw the tie hanging loosely in his brother's hands, tried to dispel the image of blood splattered haphazardly against concrete and overlaying the ashes of torn wings that had been shredded into the remnants of scorched feathers indicating that Cas wasn't just missing but that the head-tilting holy tax accountant was gone, and not just gone but _dead_…

"Are you looking for treasures?"

_Son of a-_ He jumped nearly three feet in the air, breath catching in his throat before collecting himself and turning to look warily at the perpetrator who stood not more than three feet away, gazing up at him quizzically with a polite, curious expression that only little kids could get away with. Of course he'd already seen her when he'd stormed out into the parking lot after getting dressed in record time, saw her sitting on the sidewalk right beside their motel room drawing with pieces of colored chalk and humming a tune to herself- just an unsuspecting, normal little girl who couldn't have been more than six or seven years old, quietly amusing herself on a beautiful day.

"Can I play too?"

And it was exactly because she was an innocent-looking kid, all big brown eyes and mousey brown hair, skinny little wrists and small frame that barely even came up to his elbow that made Dean stand a bit straighter, shoulders going stiff. After Lilith and Jesse, he'd had enough of little kids and their beguiling miens, all candy hearts and ponies and tooth fairies until one pulled back the exterior to see what really lay beneath the surface. _Hide and seek? Yeah, twenty-four/seven, from angels and demons and a buddy of mine seems to have gotten himself permanently hidden. Still wanna play?_ "Look, little girl," he said cautiously, trying to smile in a way that didn't feel like his jaw was being screwed into place. "Shouldn't you be with your parents?" _And didn't they teach you not to talk to strangers? _

The girl shrugged, skinny shoulders moving awkwardly under thin white t-shirt. "I don't have a mommy," she said simply, and without a hint of sadness. "My daddy's gone away for now and he'll be back later. But I don't have anyone to play with right now." She finished dolefully before looking up at the elder Winchester shyly, hesitantly.

_Oh for the love of-_ Dean was torn in between shooing her away and feeling sorry for the kid, remembering days of staying in motel rooms with Sam and nothing but TV for entertainment when John went off on hunts, days that turned into endless weeks. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Well, little girl-"

"Joy."

He halted, taken aback. "What?"

She smiled up at him brightly. "That's what my daddy calls me," she explained, revealing several missing teeth and an alignment that would in the very near future warrant the need for some serious dental work, but it was the guilelessness of the act, the lack of any ulterior motive behind the child's beam of innocence that slowed the hunter's still-racing heart, if only a little- and it reminded him of Cas's smile. Slowly, Dean took to a knee and tried to crack a grin himself.

"Okay, Joy. How'd you like to go on a treasure hunt?"

The little girl clapped her hands and squealed for- well, _joy_ and giddiness. "I'm good at finding things," she said happily, reaching into the pocket of her jeans and procuring evidence to back up her claim. "See? I found it in front of the door just now."

Dean stared, open-mouthed and he really didn't care how much of an idiot he must've looked at the moment, simply stared at the six-inch long pure white feather lying in the little girl's hands.

_A/N: Sorry for the somewhat slower pace of this chapter; things will pick up more quickly in the next few. For those of you who wanted a frame of reference, here are some of the translations from the previous chapter:_

_El Shaddai: God Almighty_

_Checed: mercy_

_As a forewarning, I've got two papers and an exam coming up next week, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to update as quickly as I'd like, but hopefully I'll have the next chapter up by next Saturday or Sunday. Until then, please review!_


	3. Jolt

_A/N: I have finally resurfaced from the sea of schoolwork. Thank you all for your kind words of encouragement and reviews; sorry this chapter is a bit late. Hopefully it's a bit faster paced than the previous two; enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel and Belial belong to me. _

People always said that seeing was believing, and one unspoken rule of the nature of all things was that the only way to learn something to was to watch and observe. The beasts of the fields imprinted upon the first object their eyes rested upon after cracking open to let in the brilliance of the light of life, the young followed examples set by their elders. Even humans, whose lives were fleeting and mortal, wrote down the happenings of their everyday so that those who would came after might have the chance to learn from their mistakes, their trials, their revelations. And yet even Man, the most intelligent and imaginative of all the Lord's creations, did not so much innovate as he _discovered_, picking up the bits of scraps fallen the Creator's workbench.

For his part, although his Father had created him eons after many of his kin, Castiel had seen much more than any human. His eyes had beheld the births and deaths of galaxies and the great Sun bursting out of darkness; he'd watched as his brothers and sisters each relinquished an infinitesimal portion of grace to light up the evening sky so that never again would there be the hopeless bleakness of pitch black night. He'd witnessed the earth splitting open over countless millennia into what was now called the Grand Canyon from a crack carved into the dirt by a trickle of water from Gabriel's finger at the Almighty's command; Castiel had watched with wonder when his sister Ramiel descended to the realm of Creation and lovingly stroked the son of Adam's forehead, marveling at the child's first gurgle of laughter that bubbled forth like water from a spring.

His silent watchfulness and solitary contemplations were not merely out of curiosity though, for the Lord's instructions to his angels had been to watch over their mortal kindred below, to watch and with an implication therefore, to learn. Over the ages, Castiel had witnessed triumph and tragedy, utter destruction with fire that erupted forth from metal contraptions spitting hot lead and the jubilant tears of a mother reunited with her child. All of this had been taken in with a dual keen interest and yet somewhat marred by an undercurrent of perplexity as to the _reasoning_ behind these fragile creatures of dust that were prideful, arrogant, and sinful at times but upon other occasions, radiated so much love and graciousness that the beauty of the Almighty seemed to emanate from every pore of their bodies.

Such was the case with Dean Winchester. His charge; his hardheaded, blasphemous, wreck of a charge who was a man ripped to shreds not by the claws of a hellhound but by too much loss and pain and sin, the soul who'd wept when bathed in the merciful radiance of an angel in the bowels of Hell, who'd fallen prostrate at the divine being's feet and had fought against Castiel when the angel had tried to lift him up because he felt unworthy, struggling violently until the angel gripped his soul tight enough to leave a permanent brand and lifted him from Perdition.

Celestial beings did not harbor the need to keep track of time or count the hours, but as the days passed in his seclusion from Heaven and the rest of his kin, Castiel constantly found himself changing – in learning that lying was forgivable once in a while, being humbled by a child guilelessly singing the glories of his Heavenly Father in Sunday church service, realizing that the dull ache in his chest that throbbed relentlessly was called _longing_, for communion with his brothers and sisters, for his home, and just to fathom the depths of these fascinating beings Almighty God loved so very much.

However, there was still very much that he did not understand.

"My name is Castiel," the blue-eyed man repeated once again, and with an unnerving calm that put even the psychiatrist, who'd analyzed the most deranged minds and unhinged individuals in the entire country, on edge. "I am an angel of the Lord."

Dr. Keiser averted his eyes from the direct gaze, looking away from the eyes that seemed too old, too unearthly and nearly _inhuman_ in a sense, fumbling with his black-rimmed glasses as he looked down at the patient's file. It seemed like the staff at the institution a couple of counties over had forgotten to take note of this sense of religious mania, or perhaps it was a newly developed symptom that arose after the transfer. "Well, Castiel," he said quietly, the name foreign and unfamiliar on his tongue, not wanting to aggravate the other. Undifferentiated schizophrenics were naturally prone to reacting negatively to potential threatening situations and this one was also a bipolar with violent tendencies, to boot. No, it would be best to appease the patient's fantastical delusions of grandeur for the time being, no matter how absurd. "If you are indeed an emissary from above, then why are you here?" He leaned forward slowly, cautiously. "Don't angels stay in Heaven because that's where they belong? Humans are the only ones who inhabit the Earth."

"I along with my brothers and sisters walk amongst you now for the first time in nearly two thousand years in efforts to prevent the decimation of the human race."

"Yes, but why are _you_ here, Castiel?" Dr. Keiser pressed gently, but insistently.

The doctor saw the sadness flashing across the patient's face but his keen gaze also caught sight of something else – something deeper-seated than mere dejection at being reasoned with; it was a profound loneliness hidden behind the veneer of collected calm and a strange sort of hurt that sent a pang of sympathy streaking through his own chest before he cleared his throat, remembering that any type of encouragement regarding a patient's delusions was the worst thing that could be done.

"There is no place in Heaven for me," the man replied quietly, eyes now straying to the tabletop in between doctor and patient. "But I am searching for my Father."

"Your father?" Malcolm Keiser really hated all manners of psychoanalysis and that sex-crazed fanatic Freud who must've really needed to get laid, but maybe this particular patient's mental issues _could_ be traced back to repressed childhood anxieties, perhaps all this was a reinterpretation of an individual trying to deal with the repercussions of severe abandonment issues after a psychotic break resulting from some sort of traumatic event… "When is the last time you saw your father?"

"Very few have ever seen the face of Almighty God, and I have not been blessed as one among their number." …Or not. The psychiatrist resisted the urge to sigh heavily, glancing upwards to find himself once again caught in an intense, scrutinizing gaze that made him seem like the one being analyzed in an odd and slightly uncomfortable reversal of roles. "You don't believe me," the man said at last, shoulders slumping dejectedly and Malcolm almost felt sorry for the poor guy; it was clear he was so deeply entrenched in his make-believe identity as an angel that it would be hard to pull him back to reality. But he had a job to do and bringing this man back to his senses was a part of it.

"I'm afraid I can't. But I do want to help you Castiel. You have to let me do that for you."

Castiel shifted slightly in the metal chair, all too consciously aware of the circular metal bands around his wrists, usually cold against his skin, of the way his shoulders seemed to automatically hunch in these unfamiliar surroundings. Without the ability to feel even just a small bit of God's glory through his surroundings, the angel felt even more isolated from not only the rest of his kin but also from…well, everything. He was as a child, reborn against his will into a new type of existence where the only things beyond himself were those that he could see with his eyes and hear with his ears, touch with uncertain and uncalloused hands, where the only things within himself were his own thoughts that lay muddled beneath the confusion and apprehension.

_I have no time for this. I must find Dean. _Looking up at the man that sat across the table, Castiel stared at the name stitched into the white coat's breast pocket, at the wrinkles at the doctor's eyes and lining his mouth, at the countenance that was kind but simultaneously wary. The angel tried to see past the flesh and into Dr. Keiser's soul, to see why he was a man of such little faith before remembering he could not. A sudden cold chill dragged icy fingers up his spine at the realization and Castiel shuddered involuntarily, a bit surprised at the reaction; this meant he had been rendered incapable of distinguishing human from demon, and if this was Lucifer's intent, what did the Devil hope to _achieve_?

The doctor cleared his throat and placed the manila file folder he held onto the table, taking out several pieces of paper and sliding them a fraction of an inch across the table toward the other. "Do you see these papers?" At the patient's slight dip of the head into a hesitant nod, Malcolm took a deep breath and steeled his features, mentally preparing himself for the other man's reaction after the words, after the dispelling of his fantasy world. "You are not an angel and you do not come from Heaven," he began, and the patient's brow immediately furrowed. "It says here you were born in Pontiac, Illinois and your name is Leonard."

* * *

Dean Winchester prided himself on being a ladies man, a Casanova of the twenty-first century, an all-American Don Juan who had his fun amidst running from demons and restocking on holy water and rock salt. It wasn't sexism or pigheadedness on the hunter's part though; far from it for more often than not, the ladies rather enjoyed getting swept off their feet for a wild night they would never forget because honestly, he was just _that_ good. He was confident of his charm and it was a rare occasion when anyone of the opposite sex could've claimed the great honor of rendering him speechless, must less a girl who had not yet gone through puberty. In fact, Dean could remember with startling clarity the last time something a girl did had left him temporarily at a loss for words, and that was because he'd been too busy trying to catch his breath.

Little Laura Linnley had easily been the prettiest girl in the entire third grade at Pinehurst Elementary School, all golden ringlets and pale blue eyes that reminded Dean of the stupid dog on the Blues Clues or whatever show that Sammy so liked to watch. So naturally, when he peeked over her shoulder one day out of boredom when Ms. So and So had been droning on about Native American mythology (Dean knew all about that already thank you very much; his Daddy had hunted down a Wendigo just the previous week) to see a sheet of lined notebook paper covered in doodles of hearts with a cupid's arrow and conspicuous-looking initials, the loudmouthed wild child had been dumbstruck for a mere second before falling to the floor, sides shaking in hilarity as only a little kid could laugh.

But kneeling here on the pavement of a motel's parking lot was surely a far cry from the days of peanut butter crackers with warm chocolate milk for lunch and worksheets with shiny gold stars or having a Dad there to keep the monsters at bay (and somehow Dean seriously doubted that even the great John Winchester could've kept the combined forces of Heaven and Hell away) – and although two and a half decades had done nothing to change his personality or choosiness when it came to the opposite sex, Dean once again found himself mute in the presence of this guileless little girl who stood in front of him, gazing at him with big brown eyes and a feather in her outstretched hands, an offering of proportions and implications that her sunshine and daisy and puppy-dog mindset could never know or fathom.

_Cas_, was the first thought that flitted through his mind once Dean's neurons regained the ability to fire along his brain's corpus callosum in carrying messages from right hemisphere to left. Then, ringing out clear as a bell against the sides of his skull and nearly slipping out through the lips he had to bite down on quickly (because he was pretty sure that there was some sort of special Hell reserved for those who swore in front of little innocent girls with virgin ears): _Fuck._

It couldn't belong to Castiel. Could it? _There's no way._ The feather was rather small and the hunter had seen the angel's wings before, blackened outlines of silhouetted magnificence against the walls of a barn in the middle of nowhere and they'd been _huge_. Dean wasn't one to study birds through binoculars or anything (unless they so happened to be possessed, and not in an Hitchcock movie sort of way) but he knew a little something about birds because contrary to what Sam thought, the elder Winchester was perfectly capable of using the Internet. At least some small bit from that god-awful biology or evolutionary something report from the eighth grade had stuck and he recalled that wings were made up of longer flight feathers and smaller down feathers…

_There's no way that thing belongs to a friggin' __**bird**_. Dean thought numbly, ignoring the way the asphalt was starting to dig into his knees through his jeans from kneeling for so long, continuing to gape. The feather was too white and spotless, too pure and unblemished as it lay there in small, smooth upturned palms and Dean balked because while he'd seen feather-shaped scorch marks before and he'd seen the tragic beauty of torn feathers matted with crimson as evidence of Zachariah's douchery, he'd never actually seen an image of an angel's unblemished wings, uncloaked outside a meatsuit or unmarred by the darkness of this world. Sure, he knew that he'd get his eyes burned out of his skull if he dared to sneak a peek at the true form of a celestial being, but here was a single shred of such holy majesty and far from being dazzled out of his mind or let down in any way, Dean felt a tiny bit of _something_ inside his chest clench tight and then unravel.

"Do you want it?" The hunter snapped out of his mini-trance at the quiet, timid question to see Joy watching him expectantly. When he didn't reply, the little girl reached out and took his hand where it hung slack and useless at his side, delicately placing the feather in his palm with a tenderness that Dean _knew_ he didn't deserve, tiny fingers brushing against his rough and calloused palm like feathers themselves – "I've got lots of them already," she said shyly, rocking backwards onto her heels and smiling; two dimples appeared on either rosy-apple cheek. "You can keep this one."

"I-" Nothing made even the slightest bit of sense right now, nothing except _this_ and Dean's fingers immediately curled inwards, his voice pitched low and rough as it always did whenever he became worried or upset. "Thanks."

A butterfly fluttered directly overhead then and Joy's eyes followed its path; she let out a squeal of delight at the sight of the brightly colored insect and then she was off, skipping after it in her little tennis shoes with rainbow stars on the sides, brown hair swishing out behind her, clapping her hands as she sang merrily in a thin, child's voice.

"My God is so big, so strong and so mighty; there's nothing my God cannot do…"

Sam's eyes were narrowed in sharp scrutiny, focused intently on scanning the sea of cars for something, anything that could be the smallest hint as to where Castiel was. So far, his efforts had amounted to nothing and the same gnawing anxiety he'd felt immediately after seeing the familiar dark blue tie looped around the doorknob returned. It wasn't the lingering presence of the emotion that surprised him so, because it seemed only natural to worry about someone who had both Heaven and Hell gunning for him. But what _did_ make the younger Winchester start a little upon closer inspection was the recognition of it being the same trepidation that had made his blood curdle as the minutes dwindled into the seconds ticking down to when the Hellhounds came to drag Dean's soul out of his body and down into the Pit, the same cold knot of dread forming around deep-rooted uneasiness and a startling concern for Castiel's wellbeing.

He wanted to wonder since when he'd started thinking of Cas as more than merely an ally, when he'd started to view the angel on the same level as Dean – as a godsend (_definitely no pun intended there_) in the midst of the Apocalypse, as a solid anchor with his pure and unwavering faith in his Father no matter what had happened and all that was still happening to him, to this world. Sam wanted to wonder but he already knew the answer, knew the moment he'd seen the flash of panic in Dean's eyes mirror the stab of alarm in his own gut. Castiel was a powerful being of divinity and light, hewn from cold fire and created for a higher purpose – but all the same, both Winchesters had already seen that Castiel could suffer wounds and get hurt, could feel pain, could be killed. And this time around, it seemed as if Dean was completely correct in his harsh yet realistic point in that while being cut off from Heaven, there was no one to watch out for Castiel now.

"The mountains are His, the valleys are His, and the stars are His handiwork too…"

The sound of small hands clapping together without any semblance of a rhythm or tempo reached his ears and Sam turned to see the little girl from before, skipping around the edge of the motel's brick building. The soles of her worn sneakers scuffed against the gravel of the parking lot as she came to an abrupt stop, eyes dancing with something that wasn't quite mirth, but couldn't have been called carefree playfulness. "Hello!" she chirped, waving one small hand that probably would've fit entirely in the palm of Sam's hand and the hunter tried to respond kindly but could only manage an awkward smile in response. Dean had always been inexplicably better at connecting with kids anyway, already having had a younger brother to virtually raise on his own; the elder Winchester knew how to appease children with guises of being a teddy bear doctor who could fix things like lollipop disease or connecting with them on a level that was more personable than most adults, gentle understanding behind the gritty exterior stemming from the childhood he never had. Sam, on the other hand, didn't even know what to _call_ this little girl-

Wait a minute. _Call. _He seriously wanted to hit himself at his own stupidity of not thinking of it earlier, but instead pulled out his cell phone and hit option number three on speed dial. Sam still hadn't quite gotten used to the notion of having an angel's number in his phone right after Dean's and Bobby's because even though his childhood and current lifestyle wasn't exactly what one would call normal, communicating with a messenger of God through such technological means instead of dropping his knees in prayer was still a little weirder than what the younger Winchester was used to; and Sam could get used to a _lot_.

_Come on Cas, pick up. Come on. _The mechanical dial tone jarred harshly through the small plastic communication device where he held it against his ear but the ringing was coming from somewhere nearby too, reverberating off metal and echoing hollowly as if inside a box. Sam turned sharply to his left, eyes landing on a dumpster and although he normally would've been grumbling if Dean assigned him this task, he now reached over the edge and into the stinking darkness blindly and without hesitation, fingers groping this way and that, hitting the plastic of garbage bags, the sticky wetness of what might've been someone's regurgitated dinner after one too many beers, and something slimy and pulpy-feeling that he really _didn't_ want to think about before meeting cloth for the second time in less than an hour. Hesitantly, he grasped his finding and pulled it out of the foul-smelling trash receptacle, pulled out a beige trench coat and shook it once, twice. _Aw, crap._

Castiel's cell phone clattered to the ground below, still ringing.

Joy stood still, half-hidden by the side of the building, lips pressed tightly together into a line that turned downwards slightly at the corners, a far different image from the blithe, happy-go-lucky child from just moments prior who'd been giggling at the strange face the funny man had been making as he dug inside the big trash can. The song in the little girl seemed to die and her eyes were wide with uncharacteristic solemnity as if becoming aware of the fact that none of this was a game anymore. And as she watched the taller man kneel slowly to pick up the slim device, so thin against his larger palm and long fingers, Joy wrapped her skinny little arms around herself to ward away the sudden, sharp burst of fear and shut her eyes tightly, wishing for her Daddy.

* * *

The room was eerily quiet as the doctor waited for the information to digest and looked intently into his patient's face, seeking out any possible twitches or signs of familiarity, but saw nothing but the same perplexed frown combined with a fractional head tilt of befuddled unworldliness. "You have been misinformed," the man said slowly, seriously, as if discussing quantum physics or some other unknown mystery of the universe. "I was never born; I was created by my Father in Heaven before the making of the universe or the realm below and He named me Castiel."

Malcolm shook his head. This one was going to be tough to crack, but it was necessary to tear the man down in order to build him back up, and this time in his right mind. "You are thirty-five years old and you worked with the IRS before admitting yourself to the Pontiac County Psychiatric Ward a little over a year ago before you were transferred here at your own request. Don't you remember?"

"Remember?" Castiel repeated, dazed. He shook his head, not knowing what an "eye-are-ess" was and still trying to assess his situation and determine the best course of action to take. "I am…I do not have an age. This vessel was of an appropriate constitution and maturity when he gave himself up to possession in service of the Lord."

_Possession? Oh boy._ The doctor sighed and discreetly rubbed his temple, inwardly wondering if these individuals ever really knew how utterly ridiculous they sounded and making a note to add dissociative identity disorder to this man's already lengthy list of ailments. "Listen to me, young man." Malcom took off his glasses and sat forward, meeting the intense blue eyes with a hard stare of his own, honed by years of straightening out men and women who'd gone off the deep end and raising three girls who grew up into rebellious teenagers with terrible attitudes before maturing into respectable young women. "You are not well, Leonard. You're very ill, and you must be willing to let go of this make-believe world you have created for yourself because you don't belong here."

"No," the patient agreed, and a bit too readily. "I do not belong here; I should be with my brothers and sisters. The Apocalypse is nigh and Lucifer has risen. Everyone is in danger and the Deceiver must not be allowed to destroy the world." This time it was his turn to lean forward, earnestly, beseechingly. "Please. You must let me go."

The orderlies standing on either side of the patient shifted uneasily in response to the patient's movement, but Malcolm shook his head at the two burly men and they stilled. "You have one brother; his name is Gabriel," the doctor said, glancing down at the file but seeing the man's tense shoulders relax ever so slightly and supposed he could mark that as a small victory. Clearly this brother was important and dear enough that Leonard recognized his existence, and that was as good a start as any. "He is a Lieutenant General in the United States Army and-" _Oh. _Maybe this was the reason the other man had started devolving as rapidly as he had. "But he was killed while overseas on a tour of duty a little while ago," Malcolm finished quietly.

Silence reigned supreme in the room but at that moment, it felt like the entire world had been blanketed in a dangerous stillness, weighty and terrible, stifling and deafening. Then-

"That is not true," Castiel whispered, frozen in terror as the words tumbled from his lips like dead leaves to be ignored and trampled underfoot. The angel's mind was whirling; he scrabbled desperately for strands of his grace so that he could reach out to sense the strong, ever-present and beautiful light that was the mighty messenger archangel, but there was nothing but his own thoughts, multiplying rapidly within his mind without reason or order; panicked. "This is Lucifer's doing." The doctor calmly slid the papers back into the file folder before exchanging a glance with someone on the other side of the glass paneled observation wall and then softly starting again in a soothing, placating voice most often used with spooked horses or children who just found out their dog died.

"Leonard-"

"No," Castiel interrupted, surprisingly harsh and terrified at the same time. He pulled desperately at the manacles restraining his limbs; breath coming harder and faster, feeling the fear spiraling out of control into an uncharacteristic hysteria. "This cannot be – you must let me go; I cannot stay- my brother- Gabriel has not…the Deceiver has shrouded your mind-"

"Leonard, the grieving process has many stages but we must aim to push past the denial in order to move on. Gabriel is _gone_ and you must accept this-"

"_AG_."

Malcolm suddenly found himself flat on his back, realized after a moment that the patient must've jumped up so quickly and violently that he pushed the table away hard, and with amazing strength for someone of his slight build. "_Ar adgt ip lu homil-"_ Although he couldn't for the life of him understand the strange language, the dazed doctor could well identify the note of frenzied distress and desperation in the patient's strangled voice as he slowly climbed to his feet, watching as the two orderlies easily pinned the slighter man against the wall, emptying a syringe of Diazepam into the struggling patient's arm, and then a second when the drug seemed to have no effect, and then in obvious urgent desperation, yet another.

"Dr. Keiser?"

He turned, nearly bumping into the dark-haired young woman who'd just entered into the room and cleared his throat, adjusting his askew glasses upon his nose. "I'd like you to give him ten milligrams of Sertraline and twenty of Escitalopram after he's been moved to Ward D for violent patients," he instructed hurriedly, glancing over at the altercation that seemed to be dying down. "And put Leonard on suicide watch, please. I have a feeling I am going to be spending quite some time with this young man."

"Sure thing, doctor," the nurse replied to the man's retreating back, smiling courteously until he disappeared from sight. Once he was no longer within earshot, the smile turned into a cruel sneer filled malicious delight as the young woman stepped up to the semi-conscious angel who was teetering on the edge of the dark abyss of unconsciousness, sagging bonelessly between the two muscular men holding his frame upright. "Don't listen to him," she cooed coquettishly, dark brown eyes flipping to pitch black. "The only person you're going to be spending time with is me, pretty boy."

She ran a finger down along the slightly stubbled jaw, over the full lips, smirking in morbid glee. "Leonard, right? You know, I kind of like that better than your real name." She pursed her lips in mock thoughtfulness. "Leonard… the demon grand-master of nocturnal orgies. Never actually met him, but I heard he's just a hoot." She nodded at the demon-possessed orderlies and they obediently jerked their captive upright; the angel's head lolled back limply, glassy blue eyes staring cloudily up at the demon and Meg smiled. "Oh, we're going to have so much fun…" Lucifer had given his little girl her very own toy angel to play with, and she was going to make her father proud. "And I heard you're just starting to feel, aren't you?" Reaching into her pocket, the demon girl pulled out another syringe. "Why don't you have some angel dust then, hmm? I'm told it's _heavenly_."

Castiel felt the pinprick of the needle skewering past flesh and the icy rush of the drug flooding into veins to be pumped all over his body and the angel pitched forward into the unforgiving clenches of the bottomless chasm of drug-induced insensibility and paralysis, diving and careening wildly out of all measures of control as his all too weak and human form succumbed to a place where there was no struggle between the forces of righteousness and evil, where neither Lucifer nor God existed, where he was not an angel of the Lord and knew no one by the name of Dean Winchester, and where the only thing that made sense was that which made no sense at all.

* * *

"_Castiel?"_

_He turned at the sound of his name, immediately aware of who stood there behind him, as statuesque and radiant as always. Only Ramiel could say his name in such a way that made it seem as if every being in existence ought to know of him despite his status as a newly created lesser angel and though Castiel was almost compelled to lower his eyes in the luminous presence of his superior, there was so much love and kindness in his sister's melodious voice that he merely dipped his head in reverence, murmuring a hushed greeting in reply. _

_Ramiel reached out and lifted his face with gentle hands, eyes filled with genuine concern. "What is troubling you, little one?"_

"_I…" He felt Ramiel's grace pulse stronger as she reached out to soothe and encourage him and marveled at the understanding being offered so readily and unselfishly. The angel of rejoicing and true vision was always one of the most openly empathetic and warmhearted out of their kin, more apt for everlasting praise and thanksgiving in worship of the Father than actual battle against the fallen. Even Gabriel, despite the messenger's obvious affection toward his favored little brother (it wasn't as if all of the Host had noticed or anything), was still an archangel and thus preoccupied with duties and decorum. Ramiel was unceasingly kind to all though, and so Castiel shyly lifted his eyes to meet his sister's. "Our Father has given me charge of the day 'Thursday', he said softly but with evident, guileless pride. _

"_Thursday," Ramiel repeated contemplatively, stepping back. "The fourth day of the week on which the Almighty created lights in the firmament; the Sun and the Moon and the stars." Her soul shimmered, brilliant and beautiful in happiness. "It suits you Castiel, and is indeed a great honor." The cheer flickered somewhat then, worried. "But why is your soul melancholy?" _

_Castiel's wings inadvertently shivered as the angel began wishing to cloak himself from sight, suddenly feeling foolish, casting his eyes down, ashamed. "No one wished to share in my joy," he confessed quietly. "Brother Gabriel is away defending the barriers of the firmament and many of our brothers and sisters have no time for such frivolity. I am of no current use and did not wish to hinder anyone from performing their duties." The lesser angel sensed hesitation and then a withdrawal of his sister's affectionate compassion and so hunched his shoulders, wrapping his wings tightly around himself in efforts to diminish his presence and to conceal his renewed loneliness, for surely since he was of no use for anything, keeping himself out of the way was all he could do. _

"_Oh, little brother…" Castiel looked up in surprise as Ramiel drew him to her, large elegant wings unfurling wide to curl comfortingly around his entire frame and was even more astonished when his elder sister held his head against her shimmering grace that glowed bright and amazing, tenderly holding him close. "Do not believe what Zachariah has told you," she murmured reassuringly, her voice so sympathetic, so very tender. "Certainly our Father delights in you. You have now been appointed as the angel of Thursday; you are so very precious to the Host and you bring such joy to my soul." _

_Ramiel was always tender, but Castiel had never seen his sister embrace anyone else before and for this very honored reason, his spirit soared and his sister's grace shone with jubilation in response – but it was nothing compared to the lesser angel's smile which was new and whole and unsullied, for when Castiel smiled, the entirety of Heaven seemed brighter for it. _

_A/N: Well, all of you can blame my professor for the lateness of this chapter; the awful man had me seriously doubting my writing ability after giving my paper a failing grade for "not getting it". But after that, you can thank my friend and partner in crime Feathered Filly (whom I swear knows how to read my brain) for her wonderful help and support. And of course, I'm thankful for all of you for sticking with these stories. _

_Translations in Enochian (which, might I say, is a really friggin' confusing language)_

_Ag: No_

_Ar adgt ip lu homil: That cannot be true_

_And just for clarification, "angel dust", also known as PCP, is a really nasty hallucinogenic drug with similar effects to LSD, only about ten times more potent. Bet you all didn't expect Meg to make an appearance, did you? Check for the next chapter around Friday or Saturday, but until then, please review! _


	4. Start

_A/N: You guys make me feel like a little kid on Christmas Day! Thank you so much for all your reviews. This chapter is for those who wanted flashbacks; my gift to you! Pretty much everyone makes an appearance in this one. Enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel and Belial belong to me. _

The timeless question of reason in a sound mind versus madness is one constantly debated, contemplated, and examined by scholars and the everyman alike, regardless of discipline of knowledge or vocation, socio-economic class or race. Mental deterioration was something feared by many in the same way one would fear death; it was just an indication of the passing of another stage of life, but was no less dreaded or frightening for that reason. Man had an obsession with control – over his own life, over others, over things impossible to hold under authority (like time and desire and fate) – and so perhaps one of the reasons for such numbing terror stemmed from the inherent loss of sway over one's own will and mind.

There's always been a fine line between genius and insanity: some, like Beethoven and Poe, skirted dangerously close to the amazingly thin and invisible boundary and delivered unto those that came after the fruits of their somewhat questionable brilliance; others stepped over with no sense of self-preservation or regard for others, aligning themselves with the character of Hamlet, tragic prince of Denmark. Still others had become so deeply entrenched into the dark, dangerous back alleyways of their own minds, the kinds that no woman armed with only pepper spray should venture down alone, or were too buried to deep beneath drugs or drink or their own damaged, deranged psyches that society frowned upon them all as one, criminal and victim alike.

"_Wake up Leonard, you feather-brained bastard. Time for your meds," came the singsong, mocking little voice and then there was the coldness of a sharp, stainless steel tip against the inside of his arm. He tried to twist away from the startling prick of pain – and it was frightening, that even this small instrument was capable of bringing about the sensation of discomfort – but it was stabbing roughly through skin and then came the rush of bitter cold, frozen flames that were far different from the icy fire all angels were sculpted from. Colors dipped and lines blurred as he fell back into nightmarish semi-consciousness. _

Dorothea Dix must have thought she was something special, a revolutionary, the Florence Nightingale of her time and a merciful angel to those with whom the general public viewed as impossible to coexist. Well, apparently saving grace had some pretty big loopholes and unfixable flaws, because white padded rooms were as bad as barred cells, serving the same purpose – to hide these outcasts, these lepers whose disgusting open sores were not on their body but within their minds, in the bowels of darkness in hopes of "fixing" them, or just to forget about their existence.

In the early 1970s, a psychologist by the name of D. L. Rosenhan designed an experiment in which he sent several "pseudopatients" into psychiatric wards; participants of the study who were of perfectly sound mental health were admitted as schizophrenics under the guise of hearing voices. After their admittance, said faux patients ceased all of what could be considered "crazy" behavior, with the intended measure being how long it would take for said now-normal individuals to be discharged. The average? Nineteen days, or just about three weeks.

_There was no means by which he could measure the amount of time he'd been trapped in this place. Day and night, the minute and the hour; the constant fog that surrounded his senses blurred them all. Time had been even more fluid and indeterminable up in Heaven, but nothing was the same now, __**nothing**__ was the same in this new corporal constitution. Heaven's soldier had been reduced to this shameful vulnerable state; weak and confused and sometimes when the fluorescent lighting above flickered, he thought for the briefest moments that he had been restored, only to come crashing down to garbled words and agonizing feeling and deformed images._

"_How's Heaven looking these days, pretty boy?" Here was the puncture, the deluge of unforgiving shadows that dragged him back under the glassy surface of the ever-expansive past melding into the endless possibilities of futures and withholding from his grasp the knowledge of the here and now- _

The findings of the study were startling. Although these wards were not the torture chambers of the early twentieth century, much of the underlying problems had not changed in the least bit. Powerlessness, loneliness, and monotony overshadowed the patients' daily routines, for it moments of interaction with them were few and far in between. Physicians and psychiatrists were rarely on the wards, staff members kept to themselves, and although they generally were good-hearted and well intentioned, nurses never assumed any intentional or unintentional harm was being inflicted upon the patients, choosing to place the blame on an individual's mental illness instead of their fellow co-workers.

_He knew full well that there were many others here; he could make out moving shapes that passed back and forth hazily in front of the rippling creases in the walls that seemed to breathe with a life of their own. He tried to call out to them but his cries went unheard because no one came, none of the other men or women came. Why couldn't they hear him; did they not know that demons walked among them? Where had they taken Dean's amulet? He didn't know the demons were aware of the power it possessed. The elder Winchester would surely be upset if he'd lost it. The dull ache in his chest seemed to expand, seeping down into the hollow cavern below his ribs, ache changing into sharp stabbings that made his head swim, adrift in a sea of voices that turned into fingers, clawing at him._

_Strong hands pried his arms away from where he'd been pressing them against the terrible void, trying to compress it into nothingness. The demon girl stood above him, small pink mouth curved into a knowing smirk. Somewhat distractedly, his glazed eyes took in the sight of geometric patterns undulating like ribbons of silk across the contours of her face; musical notes twisted in and out around each other as colors sang their song, as loud as the choirs of those glorifying the Lord. "Can't wish that away, Leonard. Trying to press your stomach into your spine isn't going to help either. You know what you're feeling right now?" Her breath was saccharine sulfur, sweet death blowing across his cheek as she leaned in close, teeth bared as her lips brushed over his ear in a growl: "__**Hunger**__." _

After all, who would listen to the ranting and raving of a mentally unstable individual who claimed to be hurt or in pain? That was just crazy. Furthermore, it was probably just a plea for attention or fabrication of the patient's diseased mind. One had to be careful to avoid getting too close to anyone in particular, even the dark-haired, sorrowful blue-eyed, pale, and terrified new patient who'd been transferred just three days ago. Some of the more motherly nurses had been tempted to go in and comfort the poor man who looked like a little boy in the way he curled up into a ball in the corner of the room, eyes flickering back and forth feverishly, like a skittish rabbit. Even a good number of the orderlies, tall and broad-shouldered macho men who'd been hired for their muscles and not their minimal ability to resort to empathy or chick flick moments, had to raise skeptical eyebrows when they saw him, unable to believe the little guy really was as dangerous as his file said. Less than six feet and under a buck seventy, the kid looked like a strong wind could've knocked him right off his feet, and yet not even twenty milligrams of Diazepam could knock him out.

"_Open up, Leonard. Betcha you've never tasted a sugar cube like this before. It's a real trip." _

"_Don't be stupid. Your feathery smoke and mirrors crap isn't going to work in here. My Father made sure of that. Speaking of which, where's yours, hmm?"_

"_Well, it's been fun watching you go berserk but you're startin' to bore me, little pansy. How 'bout we start having ourselves some real fun?"_

Dr. Keiser had suddenly been struck with a nasty case of the swing flu (which was considerably odd, given that the man washed his hands literally at least twenty times a day), and since being confined to bed rest, had phoned the hospital staff with specific instructions to allow Leonard's nurse to proceed with the patient's treatment starting the very next day. And well, better to let the nurse who seemed to be assigned to this…Leonard do her job in peace. She did seem like she knew what she was doing, and had reassured everyone with a winning smile that she was going to take good care of the patient.

And besides, no one liked to be a busybody.

_They had dampened his grace and taken away his ability to carry out his Father's will, stripped him of his very sense of being, his name. But even in such altered states of mind, he clung tightly to that which he could remember and that which he knew was real – his name was Castiel and he was an angel of the Lord. Lucifer had risen and the Apocalypse was at hand. Dean and Sam Winchester needed to be protected and although neither was upright or completely blameless, their wounded souls still glimmered with love and mercy that outshone many of Castiel's own brothers and sisters who'd forgotten that their duty was to safeguard and love their Father's creations. He had to find his Father. He missed his Home although it was true that Heaven had no place for him. Not anymore. _

"_Are you lonely, Leonard? Is it because the Winchesters are too busy to bother with saving your cute little ass again? Maybe it's because big brother Gabriel ditched you. Or did he get gutted when 'serving overseas'? Poor little angel."_

_And he missed his brother so much that it hurt.

* * *

_

Burnished shades of gold and bronze moved against the darker tan of calloused fingers and the black of a leather strap fell over a palm's life line, cutting it in half until fingers closed over it tightly, nails digging into the flesh. Dean's eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot; because of allergies, he'd told Sam, although both of them new that the only thing the elder Winchester was allergic to was anything even slightly vegetarian, like tofu. And Dean certainly hadn't been eating tofu anytime in the past four days since Sam woke up to find Castiel's tie hanging on the doorknob, fluttering in the morning breeze like a flag of surrender colored dark blue instead of white, like an ominous symbol. In fact, he hadn't been eating much of anything at all, and only with some very shrewd techniques of persuasion that oscillated between wheedling and threatening had Sam been able to get his brother to remember how to do something besides staring at the panoply of objects in front of him.

When Sam had reappeared the motel room, with the look on his face that Dean sometime ago had personally nicknamed _something terrible just happened but I don't want you to worry so I'm going to turn on the puppy eyes of DOOM to distract you_, the elder Winchester obviously knew something was up. What he didn't expect was for his brother to quietly hand over Castiel's entire wardrobe to go along with the tie still clutched in Dean's fist – trench coat, cheap suit and dress pants, well-worn shoes, threadbare socks and all. The younger Winchester insisted on taking the clothes to a Laundromat and had it been any other time or place or situation, Dean would've gladly taken the golden opportunity to poke fun at what a girl he was being. But this time around, he'd merely nodded, throat tight at the thought of Castiel's clothes lying discarded in the dumpster amongst the garbage, and started going through the pockets of the clothes, pulling the items out from their hiding places one by one.

Dean's gaze now flickered over to the cheap cocktail napkin imprinted with '_The Gentlemen's Club'_ and a water ring from the beer glass that had been sitting on top of it (_"This is a den of iniquity. I should not be here.")_, before traveling to the cell phone (_"This isn't funny, Dean. The voice says I'm almost out of minutes!") _and finally to a slightly crumpled Catholic Church's bulletin from Sunday mass a couple of weeks back, carefully smoothed out with the heel of someone's hand to reveal the name of the cathedral – St. Gabriel's.

They weren't exceptionally fancy trinkets or artifacts of ancient and intrinsic value; rather, they could've been found anywhere and actually amounted to nothing more than a pile of junk strewn across the rumpled bedspread. But they obviously meant something to Castiel for these were things that he kept with him at all times; they were valuable enough for an angel to keep hidden away; mementoes that a being who was supposedly superior to materialistic items held onto as the only possessions he ever had – a reminder of perhaps the first vice Dean had dragged him into (besides disobedience, that is, and Dean actually _had_ dragged the angel into that one too, in a way), a cell phone with which he could reach with them while being unable to communicate with his own kin (since all of them wanted to kill him for helping the Winchesters), and a token of remembrance of the elder brother whom he loved and probably would never meet again, unless from behind bloodstained steel in battle (also Dean's fault).

_Let's all say it was my fault and get it over with. Oh wait, that's right. It __**is**__ all my fault, being the righteous man who broke the first seal and all. Well that's just swell. _

But what really had Dean feeling like the biggest jackass in the world though was that which was currently lying in his fist, familiar and cold to the touch. It wasn't finding the amulet in and of itself that made his chest tighten painfully in not knowing whether to constrict or expand; it was _where_. He'd found the cell phone in one of the trench coat's pockets, convenient and easy to access. The cocktail napkin had been meticulously folded into quarters and stowed away into a pants pocket, a closer kept souvenir and the St. Gabriel's Church bulletin had been delicately folded in half and kept in the inner pocket of the suit jacket, the nearest thing to a fond remembrance as angels would ever get. The amulet, however, _Dean's_ amulet, had been in the dress shirt's breast pocket. Closer to the angel than what was meant to keep the memory of Castiel's own brother close, in a place where there was no chance of its loss, in a place that screamed accountability and protection and care applicable to not only the amulet but it's owner as well – right over the heart.

_THUNK._ _"Son of a- oh…ahem. I mean…"_

The sounds of a fumble and several objects hitting the ground followed closely by Sam's short, bitten off curse had Dean snapping out of his "let's all hate Dean" party and opening the door to the sight of his brother holding two cups of coffee, a bag of what apparently was breakfast, and a stack of five video surveillance tapes from the motel's management, one of which had fallen to the pavement below and were being picked up by a barefooted, pigtailed little girl. While Sam stood awkwardly by, trying to balance everything, Joy handed the tape to the elder Winchester with a cheerful smile, leaving behind five smudgy little prints from fingers sticky with ice cream or fruit juice popsicle. Dean took them slowly and the girl turned with a little wave, singing something about a little light that was going to shine, shine, shine and skipping off and away to a car idling in the parking lot, apparently waiting for its little passenger.

"Nice going, Sasquatch," he remarked dryly as they both maneuvered back into the room, snatching a cup of coffee from his brother. "Next time how 'bout you _don't_ almost drop breakfast on the little girl whose Dad is waiting in the parking lot."

"How 'bout you get your own breakfast next time then?" Sam snapped back, but without any real venom as he set the precarious load of goods down onto the rickety table, grimacing as his hand hit a suspicious sticky spot on the faded linoleum. "I was already trying to get these." He waved a hand at the pile of videotapes.

"Hey, you were already out the door, dude," Dean mumbled through a mouthful of fake egg and imitation cheese in the breakfast biscuit. He wasn't hungry, but wasn't too keen on seeing Sammy's epic bitch face either, taking a bite just to appease his brother.

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

"It's not my fault the receptionist chick was into you." _Probably the only reason we got the damn tapes._

"Screw you," Sam mumbled, but had to agree with his brother. Trying to get the surveillance video had been made considerably more difficult by the fact that the motel's manager had seen both of them as they signed in under neither their own names nor names on any of their fake IDs. The stout little man had been paranoid enough, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at the two of them as they rolled in at stupid o'clock in the morning; both looking like someone had just died. They'd spent the last few days taking turns lurking around the front office, seeking out a chance to sneak into the back room in order to filch the surveillance footage of the night they checked in. For such a shabby place, the motel had surprisingly great cameras; probably another manifestation of the owner's skeptical obsessions, and it was only with a fake badge, good timing, and a lot of charm (the kind Sam had almost forgotten how to use) that he was able to convince the receptionist to lend him the tapes before the manger came in that day. Good thing, too. Dean seemed ready to take an axe to the portly man's sweaty; balding head, and they certainly didn't need _that_ when Castiel was already missing. The younger Winchester tried to crack a grin. "At least she has good taste," and Dean snorted derisively in response.

Their banter was quick and easy, teasing words belying the gravity of the entire situation. In the same way they tended to pull pranks on each other when caught up in the midst of a particularly difficult or challenging case in order to alleviate tension, to drain away the stress and agitation in laughter (because that was always the best medicine), even if it was at each other's expense. And well, all things considering, what case was more difficult than the Apocalypse, what monster more frightening than the big bad Devil himself?

The sight was a far cry from a year ago, when neither Winchester knew how to behave around the other, when the ultimate goal for one had been scoring another hit of bitch blood and drowning out the memories of Hell with alcohol for the other, when the landscape had been forever changed with the first appearance of emissaries from Heaven and trying to prevent the breaking of the sixty-six deals. When the ultimate had been to stop Lilith, at any and all costs, even brotherhood. And now?

"_No, __**we**__. We need training wheels, you and me. As a team. Okay?" _

Well, now the training wheels were officially off, the cards were on the table and everything and everyone was all in for the long haul now, for better or worse. _For Cas_. Sam could see it in the way Dean kept flicking impatient glances at the secondhand VCR they'd managed to pilfer from some thrift shop down the street, could feel it in the atmosphere in the room seemed to thrum with tense energy as he leaned forward amidst the tangle of wiring to pop the tape in and in the way both of them leaned forward with baited breaths, eyes straining at the grainy footage.

An hour and twenty minutes later, Dean was wondering if Sam had gotten the right tapes or if they'd been trying to watch a really bad flick about a shapeless lump with moving masses of static and fuzzy shadows whose tape some nasty kid had unwound the spools of- "Hold it, Sam!"

As if on cue, the tape cleared, sharpening so dramatically that the Winchesters could've been sitting in a movie theater and watching the high definition version of the latest blockbuster event of the season. Except there was no popcorn, no inspiring soundtrack or any surround sound system, just the picture starring Lucifer himself and Castiel, only the crystal clear silent image of the rumpled angel facing down the Devil before the tape fizzed out.

And at the end of this movie, it was pretty clear to the two shocked and speechless members of the audience that good did not prevail over evil. Unless the definition of "prevailed" had somehow become synonymous with getting thrown into the back of an unlabeled, unmarked, unlicensed white van that disappeared off screen to the left and into darkness.

* * *

_He stood at the edge of the firmament, watching his elder brothers and sisters as they flew back and forth from Heaven down to the created realm now called Earth and the realm between, wings beating impressively against the winds from the throne. Rounded blue eyes gazed upon the might and splendor of his kin with evident awe, at the multitude of feathered appendages by which the others were moving, swift and sure for the Father's purpose and Castiel's soul shone with joy and enthusiastic delight, eager to do the same. _

_The young angel had never before attempted flying upon his own wings, for in Heaven, although the halls of the Lord were expansive, one simply had to will his own form to his intended destination, or wait until approached by another. There had not been many instances in which Castiel's presence had been required or desired by any of his superiors and he had not yet been given authorized to descend into the created realm, but be that as it may, he still wished to try. _

_Slowly, carefully and with a great amount of meticulousness, Castiel moved one shoulder and then the other, unfolding his wings from where they lay against his back, localizing a bit of strength into lifting them and testing the weight of the appendages, looking upon them with a bit of dismay. Could it be possible that these small, mussed and muted grayish feathers could achieve the same ends as his sister Ramiel's unspeakably elegant cream-colored wings that shone as bright and lovely as her joyful soul, or Gabriel's, that were two huge and impressive appendages of ice and lightening and chaos rolled into brilliant silver? Shaking the foolish thoughts from his mind, for Castiel knew he would never be as powerful or beautiful as any of his superiors, the young angel slowly extended his left wing and tried willing it into motion._

_Ramiel stood behind her little brother, watching Castiel with quiet amusement and deep affection as the young one tilted his head slightly, confused as to why he seemed unable to gain a proper sense of balance. Clearly, none of Castiel's immediate commanding officers had carried out their duty of guiding and counseling the lesser angel and the thought of their negligence made Ramiel greatly displeased, an odd occurrence for the angel of joy. However, vexation could never remain long whenever she sensed the brightness of Castiel's pure innocence nearby and as her little brother struggled terribly in midair, one wing flapping in such a way that he was starting to travel in circles, Ramiel laughed goodheartedly, her merriment shining through the corners of the firmament. _

_Castiel turned so quickly that he fell, and his soul shrank in sudden embarrassment. Obviously he had misunderstood his sister's laughter for ridicule and the so he sadly folded his wings in tightly against his back, disheartened and crestfallen. Always empathetic and one quick to understand the rapidly changing attitudes of her kin, Ramiel made haste in taking her little brother's hand and sending waves of encouragement toward his soul. "Come, Castiel," she smiled gently, soothing away the shame and fear of failure with her hand, fingers moving kindly over the other's new and still fragile wings. "Would you like to learn how to fly?" _

_Gabriel sat in council with the archangels and several other of the high-ranking warriors of the seraphim, engaged in discussion as how best to defend the Lord's newly created realm below and their counterparts of dust, Man and Woman – but against what? Surely the greatest among God's sons of flame should have been the most patient and even-tempered of all the Host, yet there always seemed to be disagreement and discontent between Lucifer and Michael, forcing the remainder gathered there to seek peace. As Lucifer spoke in a manner dangerously close to offense against these new creations, Michael's golden light was growing dimmer and dimmer in muted reproach – when suddenly the messenger archangel felt a tug at his soul._

_It was nothing so urgent as that which he sensed when rising up in defense of Heaven; his soul was not being humbled at the holiness of God Almighty or being called to duty. This strange lure was gentle and quiet, pure and yet captivating enough to distract Gabriel from the council in a way the archangel had never been before. Turning his head, he caught glimpse of that which called out so very sweetly to his being. His little brother's soul shimmered in exhilaration and abounded with so much joy that it sang aloud as Castiel stretched his wings outwards and flew behind his elder sister, chasing after Ramiel and laughing with such open and genuine pleasure that Gabriel practically glowed with pride at the sight of it._

_If any of his brethren had noticed the messenger archangel's sudden distraction and subsequent delight (which was actually rather nigh impossible to ignore, given the small nod of recognition and understanding Michael bestowed upon the other archangel), no one spoke out against him – no one, except for a certain seraph who moved to Gabriel's side and spoke in a low voice that carried the smallest, subtlest hints of mockery. "Watching the children play, brother?" _

_Indeed Belial was one of the most powerful and mighty of the Host and though his beauty and strength was truly amazing to behold, Gabriel had always felt the need for caution and a certain degree of wariness around this younger brother in particular. "I see why you like to watch," Belial murmured, almost inaudibly and in a tone of stunned surprise when his eyes fell upon Castiel's brightly shining soul. "And who is that with our sister there?" _

_The archangel was never shaken by Belial's odd penchant for causing strife or troubled by the thinly veiled antipathy the younger seraph for some reason always exuded toward him, but at the other's casual mention of Castiel in such a manner and after a brash and uncharacteristically impetuous glimpse into Belial's soul, Gabriel drew back sharply with a great desire to put Belial in his place. The shift in the seraph's expression had been barely perceptible, but the change in his soul was much more tangible; something was coiling tightly into a knot of unknown hardness and as he turned, the archangel saw the smallest hint of that very glint reflected in his brother's eyes. "Well?"_

"_Castiel," Gabriel replied stiffly, wings automatically stirring against the seedlings of threat in Belial's challenge disguised as an inquiry – but as if he heard the archangel speaking his name, Castiel glanced upward and smiled shyly at his elder brother, wings moving quicker and surer now as his eyes fixed upon the messenger angel, sapphire blue orbs bright with hope and adoration. At this, Gabriel's soul filled with unconditional love for his little brother, the troubling seraph at his side momentarily forgotten._

_Ramiel looked upwards at the glorified messenger of the Lord whose face shone like bronze but was filled with the warmth of affection and all of Heaven would have been filled with overwhelming and abounding with unadulterated joy – had not her gaze slid over to Belial, and for the second time in so brief a season, her lovely brow creased in a frown of displeasure, concern, and mounting alarm as the angel of true vision looked deep into the seraph's soul and saw frightening darkness. _

"_Sister." Then Castiel was here again, taking her hand and pulling insistently and yet so gently until Ramiel spread her wings again in flight, taking care to guide her little brother with one large, beautiful wing, sheltering him from unfriendly eyes with a part of her physical form and a part of her soul. She took Castiel to the highest mountaintops where the earth very nearly touched the firmament above and helped hold his hand up to brush the underside of Heaven with his feet still in the realm of Creation, smiling at his laugh of pure, unadulterated joy. There was amazement and awe there as she taught him how to dive so the song of the Host became a roaring storm of worship and thanksgiving as the wind caressed the faces of a daughter and son of the Most High, so that the colors of the works of the Lord's hands flew past at near-dizzying speeds and shades…_

She slapped him across the face, fingernails digging into the skin below his jaw and Castiel's head snapped to the side from the force of the blow; the world slipped by in an swirl of melting colors and lines that splintered, tapering off into invisibility or exploding in a rash of colliding thunderclouds and dueling rods of lightening. Dizzy and disoriented, the angel tried to focus as steely fingers gripped his chin and jerked his head upwards.

"Still tripping, Leonard?" Meg asked sweetly, knocking the lolling head back against the hard paint-chipped wall with a simple twist of her wrist. Something light exploded in the back of Castiel's skull and he found himself momentarily sightless, eyes rolling uselessly in their sockets as he fell to the ground, heavily. Had he not been so consumed by the lance of what felt like hot metal through his brain, Castiel would have been disgusted at his own weakness at the hands of a demon. "Not so high and mighty without those special little grace-infused party tricks, are you, angel?"

The demons knew they couldn't leave evident signs of abuse upon their captive, but that didn't mean they had to play nice. Black and purple contusions covered his battered frame, easily hidden by the standard white uniform given to all patients. There would be no breaking of the skin, but that wasn't an absolute prerequisite for torment, either. Castiel didn't know how long the fists and feet had been coming from every which direction, crashing down upon what seemed like every part of his body; trying to defend himself was a useless endeavor and had earned him nothing but ridicule and more startlingly painful blows.

Startlingly enough, the pain provided an avenue of ephemeral clarity, overriding all the other neurological gateways for sensation, long enough for Castiel to climb slowly to his feet in the dimness of the cold room; four walls lined to the ceiling with concrete blocks seemed to arch over and dip in front of his face. It was a different place and he vaguely remembered hands pulling his heavy frame along and down, deeper and deeper into what seemed like the bowels of coldness and misery. The angel took a deep rasping breath, coughing on the coppery wetness of blood filling his mouth. "_Iaidon adrpan nonci amma coronzon ol doalim-_" The words were strange and unfamiliar on his human tongue and Castiel felt a surge of despair at the foreignness with which he struggled to speak the language of his kin, the language he spoke first, taught to the angels by the Almighty Himself.

Meg shrieked in rage, lashing out to savagely backhand him across the face, screaming in a demonic tongue in her turn- "_You shut your filthy mouth, you fucking whoreson!"_ Normally, his grace would have flared to powerful depths in the cold fury of righteousness upon hearing the demon's foul speech but now, only the wild pitch of her scream grated on his ears. Then she was kicking the back of his knees and grinding his face down into the grimy floor. He inhaled dust and his own blood but she was wrong for Castiel knew his place as a son of the Most High, no matter how Lucifer tried to tempt him into succumbing. He would do no such thing, he would _not_ submit-

"Don't try to play the part of the cool and unflappable block of wood," the demon girl snarled, and then she stood, wedging the toe of one shoe under his ribs and flipping him over onto his back, resting her foot on his exposed windpipe. "You're mine now, your hear? Don't you remember? You're _mine,_ Leonard of the nocturnal orgies_,_ and I'm gonna hurt you real good, angel." Meg looked down at the raggedly gasping angel underneath her boot and grinned prettily, sweet and freakin' scary as hell. "I'm gonna show you the fun part of falling and bring you down…" she slid the loose collar of the shirt aside, revealing a swatch of pale skin and she licked her lips, eyes sliding to obsidian black. "…all the way down with the rest of us."

The demon girl stomped down hard upon Castiel's exposed clavicle that poked against the skin, evidence of starvation, and the chord of three cracks that rung out like tree branches snapping in the wind danced out past his flesh and up into the air; a hoarse, guttural croak was all that he could utter blackness descended upon the angel's tortured mind like a smothering cloud of senselessness, but not freedom from the pain, the confusion, or the voice of Lucifer thrumming inside his skull relentlessly.

_Give up, Castiel. Give up, Leonard. Curse God and die. _

And his answer remained the same: _Ag_.

_A/N: Um. Well. So…drugged up Castiel is pretty interesting, no? And now the Winchesters finally realize what they're dealing with. And Meg is a psychopathic b*tch. For all of you waiting for Belial and Gabriel to resurface, as a forewarning, you guys are going to have to continue waiting for a little while and you'll certainly be surprised with why! The following chapters are going to be pretty heavy with flashbacks, so hopefully you guys will enjoy that little bit. Here are the Enochian translations (which continues to be difficult)_

_Ag: No_

_Iaidon adrpan nonci amma coronzon ol doalim: All powerful God casts down you cursed demon of sin_

_Exams are coming up in the next two weeks, so although I will most definitely try to update soon, I really can't promise anything. Until then, please review!_

_P.S. Are there any of you readers out there who would be willing to do me a favor? _


	5. Struggle

_A/N: Thank you so much for your well wishes. One exam down and three more to go, but this chapter was demanding to be written. No Gabriel or Belial (I know; I miss them too!) but someone else shows up. Enjoy! _

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Belial and Gabriel belong to me_

"_Evacuate. Evacuate. Evacuate."_

He moved quickly along the emptying hallways as fast as he could without accidentally running over someone, his broad shoulders and tall frame making him feel like a freakin' lumberjack amidst a sea of munchkins. The ridiculous sneakers he wore squeaked obnoxiously against the slick linoleum and he very nearly slipped, narrowly missing a head-on collision with a frantic-looking nurse wheeling a blank-faced man down toward the red glowing exit sign at the end of the corridor. Another attendant brushed brusquely past him, pounding footsteps sending splashes of water everywhere; as if everything wasn't already wet enough. Sam blinked away the droplets clinging to his eyelashes and tried to see clearly through the curtain of water raining down from the ceiling, inwardly griping about how it was always a fire alarm; why, oh _why_ did it _always_ have to be a stupid fire alarm?

"_An immediate evacuation of these premises has been ordered. This is not a drill. Everyone is ordered to proceed to the exits immediately." _

Probably because it was their best cover, that much was true; the sure-fire, go-to way for getting down and dirty with the supernatural while ushering unsuspecting, innocent bystanders out of the way like a herd of dumb cattle, mooing their confusion and stumbling about. _Get out, get out, just get out of here!_ Sam wanted to scream maniacally (_ha, __**so**__ not funny_) while waving his arms around because all of these people, some of whom were already a few cards short of a deck, really did _not_ need to see the heavy-duty showdown that would be the process of getting Cas out of the funny farm.

Which, as of right now, was going just as well as literally trying to fumble through all the fragile pieces of hay for that needle. It was the Where's Waldo of trying to locate an angel among the crowd of people who all looked the same in their white uniforms and eerily deadpan faces, eyes glazed over in a manner very similar to individuals who'd been brainwashed in those movies about post-apocalyptic, totalitarian regimes lorded over by ruthless dictators who offered security and stability in exchange for all-encompassing control, a la Brave New World or 1984. And, to make matters even worse (as if standing here in stolen clothes and getting drenched to the bone while being propelled every which way in a sea of white wasn't bad enough) was the fact that somehow, the minute they stepped inside, his brother had decided to disappear.

"_Evacuate. Repeat. This is __**not**__ a drill."_

_Damn it, Dean_. The younger Winchester swiped one hand across his forehead, raking back the hair plastered to his face by the steady shower from above, angry frustration rising up within his chest like smoke curling upwards from a slow-smoldering fire. He was mostly vexed at himself though, for not seeing it coming. Sam had hunted with his brother for long enough to know and recognize the warning signals of those times when Dean's head wasn't entirely in the game, when the elder Winchester was about to go postal against a demon who'd dared to step over the boundaries and so jumped from merely getting a load of rock salt in the face to being an evil son of a bitch who would soon be freakin' _obliterated_ by the cold fury of blazing emerald eyes.

But then again of course Sam should've expected Dean to do this, to deviate from the plan, to dive heedlessly into the path of danger with tunneled vision focusing solely on his one goal. After all, this was _Cas_ they were talking about. An angel of the Lord, the only one who wasn't a dick with wings, the renegade who'd given up everything to protect and follow after the two idiots who had somehow just between them both, managed to destroy the world. Their guardian (in a sense, anyway) and their ally. Their friend.

"_Sam_."

He blinked, head automatically whipping around to locate the speaker who'd just uttered his name, but no one seemed to be paying him a bit of attention. The younger Winchester's brow furrowed in confusion as he glanced around, not noticing the other until he almost literally tripped over her. His eyebrows nearly disappeared above his hairline as his mouth opened and closed several times like a fish, too stunned to even remember how to form proper words. _What the hell?_

She stood there, shorter than his waist and with her head tilted back to stare up at him, brown eyes wide and beseeching. "That way," she said imploringly in a tiny little voice that the hunter inexplicably heard above all the pandemonium in action all around him, as if coming from the other end of a long tunnel. Her lips were turning an alarming bluish hue, and Sam was momentarily distracted with worry about the possibility of the poor girl getting hypothermia due to the fact that she was barefoot and wearing nothing besides a thin white dress that hung on her skinny frame like a bed sheet. But then she was lifting a thin arm and extending it out in the other direction, pointing down the hall and away from the exit signs, against the stream of evacuees and deeper into the heart of the terrifying maze that was the Prowers County Psychiatric Ward. "Hurry!"

_It's the little girl from the motel. What's her name? Joy, something or other?_ The questioning realizations spun lazily through Sam's mind like the lowest tumble dry setting on a dryer, each distinct thought more perplexing than the one that came before it, bewildering him into stunned speechlessness as he gaped at the other, trying to figure out how in the world she'd managed to get here and exactly why she was here in the first place. When he failed to move or respond in any way to her entreaties – maybe it was the cant of the falling droplets of water, or perhaps the angle of his downward gaze – either way, the little girl's eyes seemed to shift, changing from innocence and urgency for an unknown purpose into something ancient and unworldly, too serious and mysterious for her pinched face.

She spoke again; just one word, voice harboring quiet wisdom, the type that came from being advanced in one's years and having seen far too much, ringing with something that wasn't quite eternity and wasn't quite omniscience. Fire seared through the underside of his skin as she reached up to pull at his arm with an impossibly gentle touch. "Come." It was almost a command and all Sam could do was stumble after the slight figure, heavy feet sloshing around in the water behind pattering footsteps that barely seemed to stir the surface of the water.

"_Evacuate. This is not a drill; repeat. This is not a drill."

* * *

_

_Two weeks ago:_

It had already been a week.

That was seven days, one hundred sixty eight hours, ten thousand eighty minutes, and six hundred and four thousand, eight hundred seconds since the Winchesters woke up to find themselves up shit creek without a paddle; angel-less, hapless, and _still_ utterly at a loss at what to do even after finding out just how FUBAR this situation was. Both of them had been working feverishly for the past three days in a manner that reminded Sam of those all nighters he used to pull around exam time while still at Stanford. This time around though, the only slave driver working them to the point of exhaustion and even beyond was the terrifying knowledge that Lucifer had managed to get his filthy paws on Castiel– and yet they had close to nothing, a great big pile of squat to show for their efforts.

_Goddamn it._ The elder Winchester sat on the edge of the bed and pushed away the compiled list of rental companies in a ten mile radius that rented out unmarked white vans, scowling in annoyance at the endless pages of aliases and fake numbers provided by those who needed the vehicles for other underhanded purposes. The inventory was longer than a shopaholic's credit card bill and Dean's wavering patience, already dangerously thin, was about to slip into nonexistence.

For God's sake, it felt like they were in some crappy procedural cop show that tried to make up for its countless plot holes with flashy montages of high-tech equipment and teary-eyed confessionals that were supposed to tug at the heartstrings but instead had quite the opposite effect, spurring the viewer into gripping his hair and nearly screaming out in frustration at the utter stupidity of it all. And Dean friggin' _hated_ procedural cop shows. All the evidence they had was close to useless besides the fact that the white van had been heading somewhere west of the motel but who knew, the bastards who took Castiel could've made a u-turn somewhere. And even though Sam had been over every square inch of the angel's holy tax accountant uniform, they were literally no more than two steps away from square one. Dean wanted to bang his head against the wall. Repeatedly.

"Dean?"

But this wasn't a police drama where the storyline could be neatly wrapped up in forty minutes, bar commercials, with brilliant moments of epiphany or deus ex machina moments and the hunter turned away from where he'd been trying to burn a hole into the hideously ugly wall with his eyes (_eggplant? Really? Who the hell paints their walls that color?_), scowling at his brother. "What?"

Sam wasn't offended at the obvious irritability; or if he was he hid it well, choosing to ignore the curt tone and sighing heavily. "We're turning up nothing."

_Well, no shit Sherlock,_ Dean wanted to snap peevishly, and nearly lobbed a pillow at his brother's head when Sam tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle an enormous yawn. His fingers were in fact already twisting tightly in the cheap cotton of the pillowcase when he took a good look at his brother; saw the dark circles curving like half moons under his eyes, the lines of frustration and fatigue tightening around his mouth. The poor kid was obviously tired, and Dean felt a pang of sympathy. They'd barely gotten the chance to recover from Jesse and the whole Antichrist being a sweet little kid fiasco when this mess had been dumped into their laps and if Dean felt guilty, he could only imagine the guilt that haunted his little brother twenty-four/seven. "We've gotta keep at it, Sam," he said wearily instead, scrubbing at his face with a hand. He felt stubble scratching against the heel of his palm and briefly wondered if he, too, looked like a train wreck. "Lucifer's not gonna be waiting around, twiddling his thumbs and waiting for us to make a break in the case." _Break in the case? _Oh Christ, now he was starting to talk like a cop too. _This is just great._

"I know, but it's just that…"

Sam's shoulders made an odd jerking motion and he pushed away from the table, leaning forward to let his elbows rest on his knees, back hunched and huge hands wringing together. His brow tightened almost imperceptibly and anyone else would've let the matter drop by then, but Dean had practically raised the kid and knew Sam was trying to search in the Oxford English dictionary stored away in the back corner of his huge brain for the best way to put something. "Stop looking like someone just took away your dolls, Sammy. Just spit it out already."

One more wrinkle in between the eyebrows and then Sam huffed a long-suffering breath; clearly he'd been wanting to say this for quite some time now. "Maybe this wouldn't be as difficult if we had a fresh set of eyes."

Dean was just about to ask how the hell they could get Bobby all the way out here from South Dakota when the man was in a freakin' wheelchair when he saw Sam's meaningful upward glance. There wasn't anything of interest on the ceiling, no "gullible" scrawled up there in black Sharpie or anything, but Dean grasped the action's meaning immediately and he gaped at his brother, incredulous. "The angels?" At Sam's nod of completely serious assent, the elder Winchester sagged against the bed's headboard, flinging a hand over his eyes. "Oh, that's great Sammy." So what if he was acting like a homecoming drama queen; what excuse did his freakishly smart little brother have for not being able to come up with anything besides _the angels_? "Why don't we just paint 'smite here' on our foreheads and hang giant targets on our backs?"

There was a sigh, then the scraping of the legs of the hard-backed plastic chair against the floor as Sam scooted closer, earnest to prove his point. "Look, Dean…I know that Cas isn't exactly in high standing with the rest of the angels right now-" Dean snorted derisively, but Sam continued, undeterred. "But we could at least try Gabriel."

"You mean the grade A douche bag who stood back to watch the light show as his brother was torn to shreds." Dean squinted at the younger Winchester, his expression insinuating that his brother had just lost his mind. "Cas is on Heaven's top ten most wanted list and now you want to whistle for an archangel and have the dick play Lassie?"

"You really believe that Zachariah was telling the truth when he said that?"

_Blue eyes bored into his, as ancient and endless as ever, but as Dean stared intently into the gaze that no longer seemed to frighten, he saw something else: fear. Uncertainty. An entreaty that would never fly past the angel's lips but was as evident as the nose on his face- to Dean anyway, because he'd seen that look before, and on his own face at that, right after he thought he'd lost Sam to a knife in the back. "I need your help," Castiel said quietly, voice pitched low and if Dean didn't know better, he would've thought the timbre in the other's tone as one of desperation, "because you are the __**only**__ one who will help me. Please." _

He drew in a deep breath, deliberately avoiding Sam's questioning stare. "No, Sam. We're on our own."

"_Face it Cas, it's not like any of your brothers give two shits about you and you know it." The expression of raw hurt that flashed across the usually stoic countenance was terrible, no matter how ephemeral and Dean instantly wished to take it back, but it was too late. The words were already out there and it didn't matter how true they were; it was painfully evident that they were devastating nonetheless. _

In the silence that followed, Sam dolefully bent his shaggy head back over his laptop with a sigh of defeat and overall resignation, leaving Dean feeling like the biggest jackass in the world for shooting his brother's hopeful idea down. "Goin' out for some air," he mumbled, and was up off the bed and out the door in less than ten seconds, before Sam could offer up a response.

As soon as the door slammed, nearly hitting the elder Winchester in the back on his hasty and less than graceful exit (Dean had somehow gotten his legs tangled up in the bed sheets, otherwise he would've been outside in a second and a half), Sam slammed the lid of his laptop shut and leaned back in his chair, heaving a mighty sigh. And it wasn't his fault that he'd taken to sounding like a steam engine these past few days, exhaling out exasperated breaths every few minutes.

Dean was being an idiot. From what little he knew about Castiel's superiors, most of which stemmed from his own sparse run ins with Heaven's soldiers of holy wrath and from Dean's narratives (which were often peppered with obscenities), Sam was pretty sure that it was Zachariah who earned the title of being a grade A douche bag. There had certainly been nothing pious or virtuous about the way the bastard boasted about letting the world go to Hell, literally (_"Maybe we let it happen, but we didn't start anything…right, Sammy?"_), nothing even remotely angelic in his attempts at coercing Dean into handing himself over as Michael's vessel (_"Keep mouthing off and I'll break more than his legs."_), and something just downright _ugly_ in the way he'd been gloating over the death of his subordinate. Sam knew that as far as saints and righteousness went, he wasn't exactly the epitome of or a wonderful judge of either, but he did know a bit about the dark side of the coin. Even a blind, deaf, and dumb idiot couldn't have possibly missed the nefarious quality of Zachariah's glee over seeing Castiel, one of his fellow angels, one of his _brothers_, reduced to nothing but scorch marks on a concrete floor.

"_But dare you touch my brother, nay, dare you lay eyes upon Castiel again, I __**will**__ lay waste to your soul."_

The archangel's declaration, as if from a lifetime ago, still made a shiver run up his spine, but it wasn't the threat of utter destruction and obliteration from existence at the hand of one of the most powerful supernatural beings known to humanity that struck Sam the hardest, but the fierce protection behind Gabriel's promise; a righteous anger he'd only ever seen in the blazing fury of Dean's eyes, heard in the timbre of his father's growl. It was unmistakable, undeniable, and although angels were supposed to be emotionless soldiers for God's will, although they weren't supposed to feel anything, the younger Winchester would defy anyone who said that Gabriel did not care about or did not _love_ his little brother. And he was pretty damn sure that no matter what battle the archangel was fighting, he would drop everything if he knew that Castiel was in trouble of the worst kind.

_Dean said no_, the little voice of reason in the back of his mind offered timidly. _And you know what happened the last time you went against what Dean said._ Yeah, he knew, and it still haunted him at times. But still…_It's the only chance we have of finding Cas, or even getting anywhere with this._ Sam slouched in his chair, staring gloomily at the opposite wall. What other options did they have? It was a limited list that they'd already managed to exhaust between the two of them, and there were only so many times Sam could Google variations of "white vans in Prowers County" without going insane.

_Wait a minute. _Sam sat up suddenly, remembering the little odds and ends occult shop he'd seen tucked into the little cranny between the much larger café and thrift store on either side; there had to be at least _something_ in there that had to do with summoning angels, right? Or at least angelic lore? When Castiel carved the protective sigil into their ribs, the angel had referred to the inscriptions as Enochian, and he was almost positive a girl he'd gone out with once at Stanford, a comparative religion major, had mentioned something about angels having their own language. He flicked a quick glance at his watch. Whenever Dean went off someplace to brood, the elder Winchester was usually always gone for at least a good half hour, and the shop was within walking distance. If he hurried, he could get there and back before his brother returned.

_Don't do it, don't do it,_ reason chastised. _You two just started trusting each other again, what'll Dean say if he finds out that you're sneaking around behind his back again?_ With a grumble, Sam told reason to stuff it and stood, grabbing his jacket off the foot of the bed as he slipped quietly out of the room. They didn't have to be alone in this.

"Praise him, praise him, all ye little children, God is love; God is love…"

From next door, the sounds of a little girl singing flitted through the walls, following the younger Winchester away from the motel and into the parking lot, voice thin and thready and yet so sweet that it almost brought tears to his eyes, the knowledge that even in the midst of the Apocalypse there were still those who knew nothing about the evils that lay beyond their doorstep; children who viewed the world in innocence and make-believe and beautiful faith, untarnished by the dark and ugly realities of the world.

* * *

The leather restraints dug into his wrists and lay strapped tightly over his torso and thighs, pressing deeply into the tender flesh underneath the thin cotton fabric that was still molten yellow and varying shades of purple, black, and grey, knuckle-shaped marks imprinted onto the pale skin. "G'morning, sunshine," came a voice from somewhere above him and then a shadow detached itself from the wall. Dancing lights swum in his line of vision; he could feel cold hardness at his back and as a fingernail ran a path down the side of his cheek, he tried to recoil from the touch but the only movement he could attempt was that of his head as a pair of beady orbs, cold and as dead as sin itself bent low toward his face, voice sibilant as the tempting serpent; mocking and merciless.

"Ready to start treatment for today, Leonard?"

_The Creator of all the wonders of the universe and Father to all things had knit his angels from the cold fire that threaded together the cosmos, skillfully and methodologically, giving each member of the near-innumerable Host a name and purpose for existence; then He'd taken a handful of dust from the Earth below and shaped it in His likeness, breathing the breath of Life into the nostrils of Man. Everything that ever existed and would ever exist was a product of His hands, and held a tiny fragment of the pure light and beauty of the Most High. _

_It was by chasing after these particles of grace and holiness that Castiel searched for God, traveling all over the world and even to places unknown, seeking out the public places and most obscure locations that would make the amulet resting against his heart burn hot. The angel had stood in the middle of a town square in the Vatican, surrounded by tourists and pigeons and the sculpted representations of his kin and the saints of the Christian faith; he'd entered into the heart of a hurricane and felt the mighty ripples of majestic strength at its very eye; he'd flown past the highest mountaintops where the Earth seemed to touch the underside of the Heavens, remembering the first time his sister brought him here upon her back when his own wings had still been new and fragile. _

_He did not find God, but what he did find only solidified the conviction he held in the innermost parts of his being; the belief that his Father was still alive and out there, somewhere. In the tears that streamed down the weathered cheeks of the ninety-year old woman who'd spent her entire life in the rice patty fields of Asia praying for salvation, in the frantic but heartfelt whispered petition of the young man holding an automatic weapon while surrounded by the roughness of sand and death in a never-ending war, in the way the young woman held her friend close as she wept– it was here that Castiel felt the love of the Almighty the most. _

_That, though, was not all the angel found. Through the brightness of a child's beaming grin as she handed him a piece of colored chalk and asked him if he would please play hopscotch with her he discovered joy, gentle and freeing and innocent that was as such he had not felt in too long. Through the tired but genuine smile of the waitress who kindly offered him half of her tips when she heard he had no money, Castiel experienced the benevolence of selfless sacrifice and in the quiet, nervous smile of the girl who'd just an hour ago been servicing nameless, faceless men in dark motel rooms but ran for five blocks to attend Sunday morning Church service, he saw a love for God so passionate that the angel found himself humbled in her presence, Dean's amulet a warm ember against his heart. _

_And in the weight of Dean's arms around his shoulders as they exited out the back way of the disreputable establishment, in the gruff but affectionate growl of Bobby Singer's voice, and in the earnest fervor in Sam's words to the Antichrist, the angel discovered that humanity was immeasurably beautiful and it became evident why an all powerful God would treasure such imperfection so highly and keep mankind so close to his heart._

_And it truly made Castiel wonder if, despite his disobedience, he was also still worthy of forgiveness and love. _

He heard the surge before it assaulted his bound frame, felt the thrum of energy traveling through the lines leading to his body, and his back arched up against his bonds that suddenly felt like fetters of steely fire and ice and stone; sparks slithered along well-worn paths against the back of his eyelids and fizzled in a shower of words and voices that made no sense at all, chants and litanies from ages past wrapping around his weak limbs as they flailed uselessly. Now he understood why Dean had recoiled at the sound of his true voice, and why most humans were not made to withstand the glory that surrounded an angel's true form.

Shame would have eaten away at him then with the realization that he'd just referred to himself in the same regards as a human, if not for the next crackle of energy, even more forceful and terrible than its predecessor. The blazing pain raced across his senses and his nerves were sharp pinpoints of the needles that the demons kept pushing into his skin; trying to breathe stripped away all other functions and time was stretching, dilating across the spectrum of reality, going on and extending into forever in this one minute instant.

Everything passed by in muted color scheme, twisting shades of light and shadow and the brightness of noise from his perception, everything except the pain which was a steady constant, although the methods the demons employed were ever-changing, terrible and incomprehensible to his heavy mind. The edges of ragged bone grated against each other as he struggled vainly to twist away from the grapping hooks of razor-teethed agony attacking all of him like a hellhound, shooting through every appendage; his head banged hard against something solid and the cords in his neck stood out, his ribs heaved and it was worse than the crushing blows of fists, that faded into dull, throbbing aches. In contrast to the numbing cold that that nearly paralyzed his entire body when clawed hands with melting fingers had dumped him into the frigid water and left him there for hours upon hours, there was no desensitization this time around after the thousands of stinging and piercing burns and his teeth clacked together, clenching around a broken, begging sob because it hurt so _much_.

"Oh, does that hurt?" She was here again, the demon girl was cackling and her lips were moving, moving and peeling back away from her face and it was frightening, revolting, grotesque – "Scream then, you little priss. Scream to your God and see if He answers."

_It was true that angels did not feel as humans did. Angels were staunch warriors of the Lord; their beings were pure flaming spirit, faith, trust, and loyalty as opposed to the fragile and so easily battered mortal constitutions of man. The sons of fire were indeed capable of love and devotion and kindness, of anger and frustration and wrath. But the longer Castiel spent on Earth, the more he began to understand the how and why of emotions; the more he himself gradually began to feel. _

_Human emotions were messy and chaotic and ambiguous, a confused muddle of unclear intentions and misguided actions, holding too much calculation at times or completely without reason upon others. Contradictory and unfathomable, it was a wonder why humans chose to feel at all. In Heaven, emotions of such inconsistency and simplistic nature had no place; angels' worship toward their Father was constant and steadfast, too complex for the feeble mind of man to comprehend but never as wild or potent or disturbing as the feelings humans professed to harbor for each other. _

_Love, in particular. It was the most precious gift of all, God's love; cleansing to the soul and a strengthening balm with the ability to soothe any ache or discomfort. Humanity seemed to have taken such a blessing and twisted it to define their own carnal desires and as a reason for the lengths of insanity to which they would go for its sake. At least Castiel had thought as much, until he saw the love so clearly evident between two brothers who would go to the depths of Hell and back for each other. _

_It was then, that for the first time, Castiel felt envy. If only his own kin would do the same for each other, for they were often too busy giving and receiving orders to realize that they were all brothers and sisters of the same family, with the same Father who counted them all as his children. _

He'd flown through lightening storms, close enough to the forked tongues of electricity to feel their power resonating through his wings as they beat strong and sure against the winds and the rain, he had fought his way through the fires and legions of Hell, and yet all of it was so very different in the here and now, _because_ he could feel. Because Dean had been the one who taught him how.

Now he knew pain as well, agony that was nigh unbearable and was nothing like he'd ever experienced before even when at the hands of Alastair or a misguided Sam, because this time around he was little more than a mere mortal and his body's involuntary and desperate response was wanting to scream and plead for release, be it by death or otherwise. And so for one crazy instant Castiel hated Dean Winchester, hated the stubborn and foolish pigheaded man who took and took and took from him and gave absolutely nothing in return, nothing save for the discomforting prodding of doubt and the erosion from his resolve in service and in carrying out the will of Heaven, who took everything from the angel who never asked for anything; hated him with a passionate fury – but only for an instant.

_Curse God and die, little angel. Abandon Dean Winchester and forget your duties. Give yourself over to me and I will give you relief. _

_No._

But every single time, it got harder to resist and as the demon girl turned the crude machine's dial all the way up to four hundred volts and stood back to watch the show, Castiel thrashed and convulsed and bit through his lip, swallowing his own blood as his world shattered in cracks of electricity and a slowly unraveling thread. For in being human, he was weak.

* * *

"_You can stop him Dean, but you need our help."_

_The smug bastard actually thought he was going to follow them like a little puppy dog; thought that he would willingly sign himself over as their personal bitch. How cute. Dean willed the fury in his chest to subside and spoke, voice a lot more collected than he felt. "You listen to me, you two-faced douche," he started calmly, quietly, almost. "After what you did, I don't want jack __**squat**__ from you!"_

"_What __**I**__ did?" Zachariah's mouth twisted up into a scowl, and he took a threatening step forward. "Why don't you and your brother take a good look in the mirror, boy!" He paused then, and peered a bit more closely at Dean's face, like the elder Winchester was a puzzle to be solved. "Oh…" There it was again, that shit eating smile that had Dean's fingers just absolutely itching to find something that would steamroll the dick's mouth out of existence. He remembered the last time he'd smashed the other's face in and it'd felt pretty damn good, too. "Of course. You mean this. Lovely display, isn't it?" _

_The angel spread his hands wide, casually scuffing the heel of his shoe through a feather-shaped scorch mark on the floor and scratch that, __**now**__ Dean wanted to pound Zachariah's head into the concrete with his bare hands; his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles popped, one-two-three-four on either hand. "Regrettably, I can't take the credit for straightening Castiel out." A pudgy finger swiped through a bloodstain decorating a piece of twisted metal. "Raphael made short work of him." _

"_So, what?" His voice was a low growl. "You sons of bitches start gutting each other even before the war starts? Oh, that's just genius." _

"_Disobedience will not be tolerated," Zachariah replied snidely, drawing himself up to his full height and flicking his fingers once; the blood disappeared. Dean tried not to think about how the blood painting their immediate surroundings had once been pumping through the veins and arteries of an angel's borrowed meat suit, tried not to flick his eyes downward to see the blackened concrete spanning twenty feet on either side of them, charred shredded pieces of shadow. "And well, since Bible Camp's been closed for renovations, we decided to have ourselves a nice little Castiel-shaped bonfire right here." _

_From behind, Sam made an odd, choking sound of bitten off anger but Dean's brain refused to function; his mouth opened and closed several times and Zachariah chortled at the lack of an immediate smartass comeback. "You're gonna be the one with nothing to say when Gabriel finds out what you dicks did to Cas," the elder Winchester croaked finally, and Zachariah raised an eyebrow in obvious amusement. _

"_Cas, hmm? Cas…" He murmured, rolling the familiar nickname around his tongue. "That's cute. Did you put him on a leash and pat his head when he did tricks, too?" The angel chuckled. "Fetch, boy. Roll over, Cas. Play dead." The shiny brow drew tight together then, not in anger, but in complacent superiority. "And Gabriel? He was here, chucklehead. Had a front row seat, too." _

_Dean didn't remember much of what happened next; he was sure that he hollered something unintelligible but definitely utterly unfit for paper or record as he literally threw aside the slab of broken concrete hiding the sigil he'd drawn there earlier, tearing off several fingernails in the process but he didn't even blink at the pain as he completed the inscription; Zachariah, Twiddle Dumb and Twiddle Dumber vanished in blinding shards of light…_

_The light wasn't receding though, and it was just starting to get a bit worrying when Dean's body jerked abruptly, spastically for a reason totally beyond his knowledge or control. The hunter tried to will his limbs into submission but they seemed to be strangely detached from the rest of him; the light flashing, flashing, flashing in a really annoying manner and was beginning to bleed into his surroundings as Dean continued to convulse. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recalled this was exactly like that time he'd been stupid enough to electrocute that damn fugly Rawhead while standing in water, efficiently frying his own heart too. _

_Skin, flesh, bones and matter meshed together and then were flung sideways out of the metaphysical plane, across time and space and other mortal constraints into the place where impossibility dipped into the unknown, resurfacing with the wondrous and miraculous. But as of right now, Dean really was feeling neither, as his head slammed back and bounced off of something cold and hard with a metallic sounding 'bong', eyelids peeling back to see the black eyes of a demon looming above him, uniformed in a ridiculous-looking uniform of some sort- _

"DEAN!" Huge, familiar hands were grabbing at his shoulders and something that tasted absolutely awful was being wedged in between his back molars; he rocketed upwards off where he'd fallen against the pavement of the parking lot, shirt and jeans now sticky with the can of root bear that had fallen and subsequently exploded, forehead nearly colliding with a really freaked out Sammy, who looked like someone had just taken ten years off of his life. "Dean! You looked like you were just having a _seizure_! What the hell, man?"

The elder Winchester blinked at his brother and spat out the pencil shoved between his teeth, breath still coming hard and fast, shaking his head as the flashback that slid into waking nightmare and apparently, a grand mal. Sam's hands were the only thing keeping him from wiping out on the pavement again while he attempted to sit up, limbs still shaking as he tried to come up with an adequate answer, but failing miserably because what. The. Fucking. HELL. Had just happened?

* * *

"Oh, the poor dear," Nurse Bertha cooed, kindly holding the door open for the two orderlies as they pulled the patient hoisted up between their muscular frames into the room. And Leonard looked awful indeed; he was limp and barely responsive, sagging heavily and with his dark head lolling down between the wings of his arms, toes scraping against the floor as he was literally dragged in, despite the fact that just one of the orderlies could've carried him in with probably one arm. He didn't move after the men dumped him on his cot, thin chest rising and falling unsteadily, face pinched and pale.

Dr. Keiser's personal nurse bent over her patient, smiling sweetly. "Poor Leonard had a hard day today. I think we wore him out a little bit." She brushed the back of her hand against Leonard's pale cheek; he didn't move. "Guess we'll just have to try again tomorrow."

As soon as the oblivious nurse and the demons filed out of the room, locking it securely behind them, the patient twitched. His jaw unclenched, uncontrollable tremors wracked his skinny frame as he slowly folded his legs into his chest in odd little jerky movements, arms curling around his knees, one arm moving slower than the other, painfully. _"Abba,"_ he whispered, voice weak and choked with the sobs he stubbornly refused to voice in the presence of his tormentors. "_Father._" There was no word in the divine language of the angels for the word "father", for angels were meant to be soldiers, comrades in arms with Almighty God as their Commander in Chief, and so Castiel bent his head away from the world and drug-induced hallucinations, lips moving soundlessly, mouthing out the Lord's name in desperate hopes that at least one language would receive a reply.

He had never before prayed for anything besides guidance, had never asked for anything for himself; but as a human he was selfish, and he wanted, he _needed_ so very much – relief from the pain that twisted his weakening soul and undulated like ribbons of holy torment across this prison of flesh and skin stretching tighter of brittle bone, from the hunger that ate at him from the inside out, and a near _craving_ for a touch of comfort. How long had it been since he felt anything apart from the pain? Day faded into night which turned again into day, and that was his only marker, the only constant. How could humans stand this, _feeling_ so deeply for every day of their lives?

Suddenly, his head snapped up, the action jarring the fractured pieces of his broken clavicle but Castiel paid no attention to the throbbing ache, pain-clouded eyes focusing on the door, straining his ears and his quickly withering faith to their limits. _Adgt t la…?_

The act of moving to the door in and of itself was exhausting; as he was unable to walk, the angel was forced to crawl across the space that surely measured to no more than ten feet but felt like an expanse of eternity, moving forward on knees and one hand, dragging his heavy body along. Had he the presence of mind to asses his situation, Castiel would have been ashamed of the humiliating scene he must have presented, and surely Zachariah would have found it an amusing view. But at this point in time the angel's thoughts were on neither his superior nor his infinitesimal remaining sense of dignity but geared toward the desperate hope of feeling _something else_ beyond the physical suffering emanating from the other side of the wall.

By the time Castiel leaned himself against the metal barrier, he could barely do anything more than press his forehead against the coolness, breathing out a plea: _"Akele."_ Lifting a trembling hand, he pressed it against the door. _"Mozod."_

On the other side of the door, the small hands of a little girl lay flat against the sparse areas of the door not covered in the script of Enochian warding magic; lips pressed against the metal and an immeasurably sorrowful voice whispered into the stillness of the ward. _"Castiel." _

"_Yes," he exhaled in response, the word barely a whisper of breath and nearly inaudible, but still an acquiescence. The two of his kin on either side let him go and the lesser angel swayed unsteadily, slumping to his knees, too weak to stand. _

_Zachariah drew closer and reached out, one hand touching the side of his subordinate's face. "Good," he murmured, taking in the defeated posture, the ragged wings. "Your disobedience calls for repentance, does it not?" The lesser angel nodded; yes. "Should you not seek forgiveness?" Another nod, another mute sign of browbeaten acceptance. "Then prostrate yourself, and plead for my pardon."_

_At that, Castiel froze. There was no one in Heaven or upon Earth, no deity in existence, no presence in the cosmos who could deliver absolution besides YAWEH, God the Everlasting Almighty. Man was not made to bow before each other and so neither did angels worship their kin; __**only**__ their Creator. What Zachariah was ordering was blasphemy to the highest degree, and in the courts of the Lord, surrounded by the Host of Heaven, most of whom also seemed perturbed or at least disquieted with the seraph's command. Shocked into speechlessness, Castiel could only shake his head, a dumbfounded silent refusal._

"_Have you already forgotten your oath of obedience?" Zachariah's voice was sharp as a sword. The superior angel gripped a hold of his subordinate's left wing, crushing feathers and bone between his fingers, twisting the appendage mercilessly and with practiced ease. "Ca, __**DARBS**__."_

_Hardly able to breathe through the staggering agony, a whimper slipped out of Castiel's throat and several members of the Host, straight-backed in their resolve not moments ago, began to murmur their unease – and as Zachariah began to reach for the lesser angel's right wing, another wing descended from above, swatting the seraph's hand away with a sharp blow. _

_Ramiel's wings were not what they once were, scarred and tattered instead of a beautiful gleaming white, forever crippled as evidence of the savage cruelty of her former brother and Lucifer's second in command. But as the ragged and unsightly appendages wrapped protectively around the lesser angel it was not of her wings that all who were present took notice, nor of the fact that the eternally wounded seraph had descended into the lower orders of Heaven, but of the rage in Ramiel's soul. _

_The angel of joy was almost never anything but ebullient, full of the abounding grace and delight of the Lord. Naturally then, as her grace burned fierce and terrible in an all-consuming anger, the members of the Host cast their gazes downwards, cowed as their sister glared at each one of them in turn. "Would all of the Lord's servants stand aside to witness such disgrace in His hallowed halls?!" _

"_Peace, sister," Zachariah began placatingly, for the angel of joy's dominance outranked even his own – and Ramiel rounded on her brother with frightening swiftness. _

"_You __**abuse**__ your authority, brother, and you shame yourself, Zachariah." Her voice, only ever uplifted in worship of their Father, thundered across the Heavens and throughout the firmament, with the righteous fury only a creature that knew of pure joy could exude. Stretching her ruined wings outward, Ramiel lifted her injured brother in her arms and disappeared. _

_Castiel made no sound of pain as Ramiel's healing fingers swept through his torn wings and around the frayed edges of his faith; he did not move or weep as her grace reached out to soothe his, hands running gently over the feathers, as gentle and tender as the first time she taught him to fly. The lesser angel was exhausted; he thought of his charge and Heaven's deception, of Dean Winchester and the end of all things for the rapture and of Paradise – and Castiel simply laid his head on his sister's shoulder with the weary acceptance of one who had once forgotten, but had been painfully reminded of his rightful place. _

Bertha blinked at the sight of the little girl who couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old, brown hair gathered in two pigtails and dressed in a darling little brown jumper. The child stood in the middle of the hallway, hands pressed against a door and as the nurse stood there, frozen half in wonder and half in fear, the girl turned her head and Bertha saw the tears shining on her pale cheeks.

When the nurse blinked again, the girl was gone.

_A/N: I suppose it is a bit unfortunate that the creative part of my mind really starts to work when I'm supposed to be studying for finals. Hope everyone enjoyed Zachariah's surprise appearance. Kudos to everyone who figured out the connection between Joy and Ramiel! Don't get too attached to her though; that's all I'm saying. _

_Enochian translations:_

_Adgt t la – Can it be?_

_Akele, mozad – daughter of God, joy of the Lord_

_Ca, darbs – Therefore, obey_

_As for the favor I mentioned last time? Well, Christmas is coming up and if it wouldn't be too much to request, I'd ask for anyone who reads to drop a review, no matter how short or feeling; they're like candy without the whole gaining five pounds bit, and are helping me survive through exams. You guys are absolutely wonderful! Check back in about a week for the next chapter! _


	6. Siblings

_A/N: I am officially done with fall term of freshman year! My brain needed a little time to recover, which is why this chapter is a bit late. But thank you all for your patience and your reviews! This chapter is a bit different from the others, but I hope it's still enjoyable! _

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel and Belial belong to me_

The statistics stated that six out of ten working individuals hated their jobs. What those surveys often left off though, was the tail end of the sentence: "hated their jobs with a _burning passion_." In a country where the streets were supposedly paved with gold, Americans sure had an odd way of turning their dream into a goddamn nightmare. Interestingly enough, any cubicle-dwelling, eight to five breadwinners who arrived back home after braving the battlefield of rush hour traffic to their wife and two point five kids and one dog would describe their paid positions of regular employment with one word: _Hell_.

_Ha_. If only they knew.

In a lot of ways, Hell was like any well-oiled machine, any finely tuned institution that ran along smoothly with its own set of rules and regulations; part family of organized crime, part multi-million dollar enterprise with cutthroat pacts made at crossroads, contracts sealed with a deadly kiss in place of signing on the dotted line or firm handshakes. Although there was no real sense of a caste system set in brimstone, it wasn't really true to say that the realm of eternal damnation was nothing but chaos and agony in flames that never died; quite the contrary, actually. The paper pushing peons knew when to keep their heads down in flogging away intently at the pitiful bastards stretched out on the racks in front of them and whenever they sensed the faintest traces of opportunity to move up the chain of command they pounced, pandering to their superiors, the members of the big guys entourage and the pimps, lifting their heads like the hellhounds that howled at the upper crusts of the Pit because just like anywhere else, being at the bottom rungs of the food chain sucked ass.

For their part, the higher ups, the lieutenant generals, and favorites of the big bad Prince of Darkness himself knew how to keep their subordinates working…generally. The weaker ones usually fell from the limelight but the shrewder ones knew the most important secret to keeping their position up at the top, and it wasn't an aristocracy at all. Lucifer's first and his second in command had to work just as hard as the others in order to prevent insurrection – and it was _hard_, keeping all of those ambitious little ducklings in a row. Those who'd managed to stay at the top had gotten good at sealing their positions by rearing their truly hideously ugly sides and attacking those who dared to encroach upon their territory, all claws and teeth and merciless, brutal savagery.

It was a lot like scaling the corporate or social ladder anywhere in the world; the only difference was that the Abyss dealt in souls instead of money or other so insubstantial as worldly possessions – that, and the fact that their father and CEO had been locked away by _his_ Father for the better part of…forever, actually. And, well, that just made Lucifer's release and immediate ascent all the more glorious.

For most, anyway.

The shadowed figure moved swiftly down the sidewalk and toward the high-rise condominium, long-legged strides exuding an odd, stealthy grace but resounding with repressed anger. As he drew nearer to the well-lit entranceway, the doorman took in the crisp, expensive Italian silk shirt stained a dull copper, the crimson still embedded under manicured fingernails, and the neatly pressed pants drenched in blood from the hemline up to the knee – but none of it was as terrifying as the expression on the man's face.

Malthus gulped audibly. Certainly, while the countenance wasn't that of a maniacal serial killer (because _that_, he who was among one of the many earls of Hell could handle with ease) or filled with the thousand-yard stare of holy righteousness that all the angels' meat suits seemed to wear, the demon was scared shitless.

He shouldn't have been afraid; he was a commander of legions who deferred to his superiors as to where to send them and he was as efficient in battle as the weapons he made. But Malthus dared any demon besides their lord and master to not feel fear when taking in the sight of the Second Prince of Hell advancing forward, soaked in the blood of slain angels and leaving a trail of crimson footprints in his wake, with just the slightest hints of annoyance tightening his features.

While he'd always been loyal to those above him, even deigning to work as the private assistant to several of the foremost chiefs of Hell, Malthus knew how to play the game well enough. He was young by demon standards (only a thousand or so years, in fact), but through some clever strategy and a couple rounds of stabbing his peers in the back and in the face, he'd managed to land himself the most lucrative and highly coveted position of being a part time personal concierge and part time unofficial handler to Lucifer's right hand man.

The Lord of lust kept most to himself, but over the past few hundred or so years, Malthus had learned when to keep his mouth shut, when to leave the other alone in very much the same way he now knew that the faintly visible irritation translated into terrible fury underneath the exterior and reflected in his superior's cold, dead eyes. The last unfortunate idiot who unwisely suggested that his master simply "forget about your blue-eyed, feathered Scarlett O'Hara and let me find you another slut" had gotten himself wasted in such a manner that all of Hell heard his agonized screeching for days on end and so the demon straightened, swallowing nervously as he tried to stutter out a greeting. "Good eve-"

"_Piss off."_ Came the growl in reply as the man stormed into the lobby and the demon snapped his jaw shut so quickly that he nearly bit off his meat suit's tongue and nodded, a quick, nervous jerk of the head before disappearing into the mist.

The finger that jammed against the button for the top floor in the elevator left a smudge of crimson whorls and swirls; the sanguine evidence of holy celestial beings who'd been exterminated like roaches. The angels fought viciously in their own right and were damn hard to kill; if you stepped on one, it was like the egg sack exploding from the insect's abdomen – fifty more came to take its place, the tenacious little bastards. It was a tedious job; impossible for those who had neither the means nor the abilities and not entirely effortless for those who did, because of the fact that one had to be extremely thorough when dealing with Heaven's soldiers.

_And a thankless chore, to boot._ Belial scowled dignifiedly at Thomas Hartley's disheveled reflection in the golden metal plating, reaching up to smooth back a stray strand of dark hair away from his face; his eyes traveled to the dried rust-colored smears on his hands, to the blood still caked in the lines of his palms and the wrinkles of skin drawn over knuckles and joints. The fallen angel usually didn't like getting his hands dirty when disposing of his former brothers and sisters, but Vehuiah had been especially difficult to take down, proving just as strong as he'd been in the Battle of Heaven oh so long ago. And while tearing the seraph's meat suit's heart out of his chest wasn't exactly the Lord of lust's style, it had provided distraction long enough for him to burn the angel's grace into nothingness.

_Pity. _Belial flicked his fingers once and the congealed blood flaked into pieces, cracking and falling to the floor like snowflakes. He cast a disdainful glance down at his ruined attire. The shirt had cost a fortune, and he quite liked the pants too, not to mention the Russian calf shoes which were undoubtedly ruined and already starting to crack at the edges from their wearer wading through too much blood. Any other demon would've undoubtedly been in the throes of orgasmic ecstasy, basking in the victory of just having wasted the better part of a quarter of an entire garrison of angels, and yet at this particular instant, the Lord of lust wasn't just a little…miffed.

In the past few months since their head honcho's ascent, the demons scattered all over the globe and in the Pit below had been partying it up like college kids in the Bahamas over spring break. After all these were the days of miracle and wonder, right? Lucifer now walked the Earth and it was a good day to be bad. And in the beginning, that's what the Devil's right hand man thought too.

There were a great many differences between the Second Prince of Hell and the Morning Star himself, the first being that contrary to what many thought, Belial really had no great desire to destroy his former kin. Not that ending the feather-brained bastards broke his heart either, he'd been perfectly fine with just letting them be; the only one among their number he really had a bone to pick with was the archangel who'd ripped his wings from his back because yeah, he was still pretty sore about that. Sure, he enjoyed a bit of S & M now and again, but having your prick of an elder brother twist off two appendages that were attached to your shoulder blades by countless tendons, nerves, and several hundred tiny bones? That really didn't do much to stimulate the libido.

The second was their very dissimilar points of view because while they _were_ brothers and allied together once for the common goal of changing around the order of Heaven's management, their motives surely were as same as night and day. Honestly, what was so bad about humans anyway? True, they were bumbling, mindless idiots half of the time, utterly useless the other half and overall less than nothing compared to their counterparts in Heaven, but if for nothing else, God's favored children of dust were so much _fun_. And more than that, the little hairless apes were self-sufficient. Call it free will or whatever tickled your fancy, but Belial found it rather relaxing to just sit back and watch as humanity tore itself apart, never having to do more than whisper a temptation now and again, set off a war here and there with a well-timed lie or two. Lucifer had actually gotten off easy, once the whole bit with the forbidden fruit was done and over with; mankind went to Hell even with Satan rotting away in his cage. God, on the other hand, had to imprison Himself in mortal flesh and come down from Heaven with a mission of unconditional love and mercy and forgiveness – only to be crucified by the ones He'd come for the sake of saving (that was another thing Belial appreciated about humans, their penchant for the ironic and humorous).

Not that there was anything particularly terrible about donning a meat suit. One just had to know how to pick and choose the right one. Humans were actually quite ingenious creatures, absolute naturals at doing the nasty and indulging in the pleasures of the flesh. There had been the delights of Sodom and Gomorrah, the so-called unspeakable vice of the Greeks, the dirty underground harems of Victorian England filled with women just bursting out of their corsets with sexual repression, the playgrounds of the Wild West overflowing with wide-eyed, broken little soiled doves who reminded Belial so very much of the feathered, blue-eyed little brother he'd been promised (and actually had yet to be reimbursed with) – yes, the Lord of lust had indeed learned how to enjoy himself over the past couple millennia, regardless of Lucifer's presence or absence.

But there were always those who sought to resurrect their lord and master and once the whispers of the sixty-six seals started, once Belial heard of Lilith somehow managing to escape from where she'd been stuck neck-deep in the Pit; he knew the days of rest and relaxation were over. Truth be told, he would've much rather simply let things stay the way they were – but while the Lord of lust was simultaneously the Lord of lies, Belial was nothing if not loyal. After all, getting the Morning Star out of his cage was the only way for the bastard to finally fulfill his end of the deal after countless ages, right? Tit for tat, loyalty through the ages in exchange for the guarantee of one innocent little brother. Right?

_But of course, I forgot that Lucifer is an insufferably egotistical, moronic little shit who couldn't care less about anyone else so long as he gets to see the world burn. _Instead of things getting easier after Lucifer rose, now he had angels breathing down his neck at all hours of the day and night and had already gotten some rather nasty bruises and bumps from Mr. High and Mighty Lord's messenger who could just go and stick his stupid trumpet up his lily-white ass.

Agile fingers working to loosen the knot at the demon's throat paused for a moment and Belial frowned thoughtfully; where had Gabriel gone, exactly? He hadn't heard anything through the grapevine about the archangel since-

Belial's face darkened spectacularly; he stripped the tie away with brute force, noting with vague interest the tooth that bounced out of where it'd apparently gotten stuck somewhere in the complicated Windsor knot (_must've been from when Muriel's pretty little face met that brick wall at seventy miles an hour)_, scowling as the elevator doors opened with a slight 'ding' to reveal the darkened interior of the spacious penthouse. A drink, he really needed a drink. Toeing off his ruined shoes and kicking them into a corner, Belial flicked on the lights-

"Hello, brother."

* * *

_Ramiel loved her brothers and sisters; that much was evident and did not necessarily bear repeating. Out of all of the Father's creations, the angel of joy was the closest personification of the complex, everlasting love of El Shaddai (Christ the Son didn't count, because of "the Word being flesh but also being with God in the beginning" – and yeah, everything about the Holy Trinity was a bit complicated) and as God Almighty delighted in all with equal affection, Ramiel knew that playing favorites was something she ought not to do – but she really couldn't help it. Amongst the vast works of the Father's hands, of all the members of the Host, one brightly shining soul in particular had always occupied a special place tucked away in the corner of her heart and surely, Ramiel thought, __**surely**__ the Father must have spent just a bit more time in carefully creating the wonder of an angel known as Castiel._

The demon bounced, actually _bounced_ when he hit the ground, rolling for perhaps a bit longer than necessary, just anxious to get as far away from the frightening creature of holy light and righteous indignant fury. From across the way, a small sandaled foot stomped down hard upon another demon's chest with a 'crack' as the woman's sternum split cleanly in two and she screamed, writhing as the demon within was sent back to Hell.

_She remembered back to when he'd been created, remembered how it had been like the birth of an entire galaxy; but millions of exploding stars could not have compared to the innumerable strands of pure innocence and goodness woven together into an incredible fire and zeal for service within the precious soul that had started singing aloud in joyous harmony with the rest of the Host almost before it left the hands of God. Ramiel had heard the whisper of her newly made brother's name first, and when she had reached out to touch him, the angel of joy recalled Castiel's grace easily molding into her hands as no other had done before. His soul pulsed warmly against her being, with the same trust as when he'd been resting in the embrace of the Most High and Ramiel surprised herself when an odd tug of protection in her own soul bloomed in response._

_Almost selfishly then, she had shielded her little brother from all others as she drew him close to unfold the burning light of his flawless grace and to smooth out the damp, matted mass of feathers twitching as the glory of Heaven shone through them for the first time, stroking each wing out evenly and whispering words of welcome and peace and safety into Castiel's soul- _

"_Awaken and rejoice, son of the Most High. You have been intimately and wonderfully made for the honor and glory of Almighty God our Father." _

_He'd raised his head for the first time at his sister's voice, revealing bright blue eyes that drowned Ramiel in a vast sea of gratefulness, faith, and adoration so incredible that had angels lungs or a need to breathe, surely her breath would have been stolen away. "Hello, Castiel," the angel of joy whispered in a voice meant for no one save for the little brother she held in her arms. "I am Ramiel, the daughter of joy." _

"_Ramiel?" The lesser angel's voice was nothing so spectacular as his sister's; in fact, in comparison to the angel of joy's melodious chords, Castiel's tinny little whisper was actually rather cacophonous. But Ramiel practically glowed at the sound of her name tumbling from her little brother's mouth: his first word. "Sister?" His fingers, small and so very fragile, left trails of flaming brilliance as they traced the contours of his sister's grace, memorizing her down to her innermost being and it was then that Ramiel knew, for the first time, the true meaning of the bottomless depth of the Father's love. "__**My**__ sister." _

_And while the declaration of ownership hadn't been necessarily correct (since the angel of joy rightfully belonged to no one but the Lord) she hadn't bothered correcting him. _

Brown eyes turned a blinding, pure white for an instant, pouring from the vessel's eyes and mouth. The strength of the Lord won out over any force from the realm below though, and the angel turned, swiping one hand across the empty space, fingers clawing at the air and the six foot five, two-hundred fifty pound man was driven down into the concrete by an invisible force, vertebrae of his neck shattered into a thousand pieces. An unearthly howl rent the air and black smoke funneled up toward the sky, dissipating into the sunlight as one of Hell's more prominent earls learned the hard way how not to attempt exorcising a rather vexed emissary of Heaven.

_Setting Castiel out on his own to navigate the orders of Heaven and to explore the wide stretch of the many halls of the firmament was difficult, for by then Ramiel loathed to leave her little brother alone, fearful for his wellbeing. However, no sooner had she released him then did Castiel immediately gravitate toward the one whom his soul saw as the most beautiful of all the sons of fire and thus the most worthy of emulation – not Lucifer, in all his brilliance nor Michael, bathed in glorious might, and not Belial for his undeniable splendor – but Gabriel, the powerful archangel who sat in the esteemed position at the left hand of the Almighty. _

_The messenger archangel was nearly as different from the rest of the Host as Castiel was, exuding a quiet authority whereas others of the same caliber surely would have reveled in barking orders. But then again, there were very few of the same caliber as Gabriel and Ramiel had been delighted for Castiel, for in peering into the haze of what could be, the angel of true vision had seen the maturations of a deep bond between archangel and little brother. The only problem was that Castiel had been so shy, oh so unsure of himself and unaware of his own luminescence, therefore Ramiel had continued to keep watch over him, even after it had become apparent to all of Heaven that Gabriel had developed a deep fondness for this lesser little brother. _

_And yet even the combined efforts of the angel of joy and the messenger archangel had been unable to fully shield Castiel from one of their own. Ramiel always looked back upon that moment when she'd requested to speak to Belial about a truly disturbing darkness she'd seen corroding the edges of his grace with a shudder, unable to forget her former brother's disconcerting words ("Of __**course**__ I love little Castiel") and even now, her ruined wings trembled at the mere thought of the fallen angel. The Lord of lust's savage and bestial lechery for her little brother was one of the few notions that could make Ramiel's soul flare hot in simultaneous terror and anger, terrible fury quite uncharacteristic for the angel of joy. Even when confined to the higher orders of Heaven and more or less removed from the rest of her kin after Belial's vicious attack and due to her permanently weakened state, she always remembered how Castiel's small fingers had once moved across the shimmering orb of her grace, remembered his first words of strangely vehement possessiveness that somehow held no trace of selfishness, memorized the warmth of his soul. _

Joy barely flinched when a charging demon inhabiting the shell of an adolescent boy managed to get in a long, shallow swipe across her face with a penknife. Calmly, blinking away the blood trickling into her eyes, the little girl took two steps forward and with one swift upward thrust, plunged her sword into the boy's skull. Her gaze was cool, impassive as the demon screeched in torment and his host crumpled to the ground, dead.

_Although Ramiel knew of Heaven's true intentions from the very beginning (and in reality, it was truthfully the greatest act of mercy the Host had ever carried out since their Father's absence: the advent of Paradise), she'd still prayed fervently for Castiel's wellbeing upon the news of his descent into the Pit for the sake of rescuing the Righteous Man and rejoiced when the lesser angel returned, slightly worse for the wear but holding his charge tightly against his form, surrounding the battered soul with his grace – even going so far as to shield him from Zachariah and his other superiors, very much like the way Ramiel had held him close upon his first entrance into existence. And while the information Ramiel bore knowledge of concerning Dean Winchester was a bit scant in details, it was at this instant that she knew she'd just forever lost one small, irrecoverable part of her little brother to this sinful creature of dust who had broken the first seal. _

_Had she been envious? Perhaps just a little, she would have to confess, for Ramiel was no liar. Bitter? By no means. But had she been worried? Yes. The realization had been somewhat frightening, for Ramiel knew for a fact that no son or daughter of sanctified flame had ever loved any human so deeply, so purely, so very much like their Father did – devotion without idolatry, affection far from infatuation, admiration and respect without worship; it was beautiful and amazing, and oh so very dangerous._

_The angel of joy loved the human race as it was her duty to do so; the difference was that Ramiel never felt anything as strong or true for the mortals below as she did for her own kindred. What she felt when Castiel faced down one of the foremost Dukes of Hell on his own and subsequently sounded trounced the demon (Heaven seemed brighter that day due to her beaming smile for she'd been __**so**__ very proud) was definitely different from the joy she infected the people of Israel with when the shepherd boy triumphed over Goliath the Philistine; the overwhelming pleasure that thrummed through the entire Host as their Song swelled in glorification of the Son's birth with Gabriel in the lead was clearly worlds apart from the tears of happiness that streamed down the cheeks of a new mother. And though she had no sense of distaste for mankind whatsoever, Ramiel would most certainly admit to not particularly caring too much for the creatures who had torn her family apart because yes, she'd once loved Lucifer as well as every single member of the Host who'd fallen out of the Lord's favor. _

_Thus, it had been out of concern for her little brother's sake that Ramiel spoke to Zachariah about Castiel's worrying and questionable sympathies for his charge, confident that the other commander would keep watch over his subordinate when the angel of joy could not. She'd felt the gradually tightening tendrils of doubt and confusion streaking across Castiel's consciousness, spiraling this way and that across his soul and had not known what to make of it but trusted Zachariah – an error she resolved to never make again. _

_When Ramiel felt the lesser angel's soul bleeding pain and the sorrow of utter hopelessness, the angel of joy had been a blur, descending through the orders of Heaven faster than even the soldiers of the Lord could comprehend because Castiel __**needed**__ her, she had not expected to see Zachariah arrogantly pretending to play God. But what had burned through her grace, stronger than the foundations of the firmament and more terrible than eternal death was nothing compared to the claws of despair that nearly tore her soul in two when she felt her little brother's soul explode and smolder into the void of oblivion._

Ramiel moved toward the final remaining demon who was cowering against the side of the building and doing a very poor job of trying to melt into the brick wall. Stooping down low, she twisted Joy's tiny fingers in the front of the demon's white uniform and hoisted him up off of the concrete, faces inches apart; angel and demon close enough to be drawing the same breath into their respective vessels' lungs. The cut had long knit itself back together and the image of a little girl bearing down upon the grown man would have been amusing had not it been for Ramiel's next words. "Heed my words, spawn of the most unclean," the daughter of light's voice was low, threatening. "For I shall say them but only _once_."

Sunlight cut through the fog and mist, briefly throwing the shadows of partially destroyed wings against the ground, great arches of tragic ruin curving out from the child's back and the demon whimpered, but the angel had no pity for her former fallen brother. Castiel had already been destroyed once but was resurrected and though now exiled, Ramiel knew she had been given another chance to protect the little brother whom she loved – and this time, she would stop at nothing to restore to him just a fraction of all he meant to her.

And if doing so required disregarding Heaven's decree; if it called for deception and collaboration in disguise with Michael's reluctant vessel and Lucifer's true receptacle, then so be it.

* * *

Sam watched his brother stealthily out of the corner of his eye, pretending to research and letting his fingers dance randomly across the keys for extra effect. Dean sat sullenly on the bed, propped up against two pillows and sulking as he flipped rapidly through some trashy magazine raging about the evils of high-waisted jeans and Lady GaGa's latest "edgy" outfit that looked so weird (not to mention uncomfortable; how did the woman manage to _sit down_ in some of those ridiculous getups?) that it made some of the things the hunter had seen in the course of his thirty years on Earth seem downright _normal_. Between being reduced to choosing between reading about gossip and fashion or dying of boredom and having Sam fuss over him like a mother hen (yes, he knew the younger Winchester was keeping a hawkish eye on him even though Sammy was trying to be discreet about it), Dean didn't know if he would make it out of this fiasco with his dignity intact.

Of course he wasn't to keen on lounging around like a static bump on a log, doing basically nothing worthwhile, but after the recent scare in the parking lot…

"_Dude, seriously? Stop it, Sammy. I'm fine." _

"_Dean, I don't care if you could jump over the moon right now." Sam's words were tight and clipped, his movements sharp and jerky as he mechanically collected the panoply of books spread out across Dean's bed and dumped them on his. "Stress and sleep deprivation are two causes of non-epileptic seizures and since I know for a fact that there's nothing wrong with your head, you are going to take a break. No research, no worrying, just __**rest**__." _

_He was simultaneously annoyed, slightly guilty, relieved, and then subsequently angry – annoyed at Sam's totally unnecessary coddling, guilty at having to have his little brother worry over him like this, a bit relieved because it did feel like the space between his ears was stuffed with cotton, and then angry at himself. How could he afford to drift off to dream land and saw logs when Castiel was still MIA? Dean opened his mouth to argue, but Sam cut him off quickly, pointing to the bed like a parent lecturing their child who was begging for five more minutes in front of the TV, please. _

"_We're not arguing, and this is not up for discussion. Sit. DOWN." _

In the end, it had taken an interesting combination of Sam's high intensity sad, pleading gaze and his best bitchface to coax Dean into giving in, although the elder Winchester would still maintain it was because he was a bit tired and not because of his inability to say no that particular wounded expression.

_There should be laws against letting people make that face. _He scowled down at the glossy pages with speech bubbles screaming out about how some singer Barbie look-alike had finally broken up with her lying, cheating bastard of a husband and _who the fuck cared_. It was a bit astounding how oblivious everyone and their mother was about the friggin' Apocalypse, but Dean guessed they couldn't be blamed. Not really. It didn't seem like Lucifer had pulled out the big guns yet, 'cause most of the world was still standing and didn't look like World War III had just been declared. Rolling his eyes in disgust, he pitched the magazine across the bedspread and flicked a quick glance at his watch. Maybe he could convince Sam to let him go get some food. _Is four-thirty too early for dinner? _He glanced over at his brother and when Sam narrowed his eyes in response, he heaved a frustrated sigh and flopped backwards onto the bed, head sinking into the pillows.

It wasn't like he thought of the convulsive fit as nothing to worry about; Dean rather liked having completely control over his own limbs and sense of motor coordination and he preferred not feeling like he was on an acid trip, thanks very much. The seizure had scared him too, although more because of what he felt and saw while going into spasms against the dirty pavement, what he was now sure had been currents of electricity running through his body, and the sight of demons standing over him, faces twisted into maniacal grins of amusement.

Castiel was an angel of the Lord, an overwhelmingly powerful and sometimes freakin' scary soldier of holiness, infinitely wise and knowledgeable of a great many things – and who, even after repeated shouting, wheedling, and blatant threatening, _still _didn't quite get the concept of personal space. And honestly, after a year of knowing the guy, a year of the other stepping so close that Dean could smell ozone and see his own reflection in those expressional blue eyes that said everything the stoic face didn't, a year of yelling at the dicks with wings while one angel stayed behind to soothe the hunter's troubled sleep and to keep nightmares of Hell away just _because_; after a year of caring without knowing it, of almost losing Sam and seeing a bleak future, after already having lost Cas once to an archangel – Dean really didn't mind all that much anymore. He'd gotten used to the strange flashes of memories that weren't his, images of places he'd never been and of experiencing surging currents of emotions he'd never felt, pain that stemmed from the brand forever sealed into his skin in the shape of an angel's hand, so much that what actually came across as strange in the aftermath was feeling _nothing_ there after those final torturous moments writhing at Belial's feet on the convent floor as Lucifer rose, after experiencing Castiel's death.

Following the angel's miraculous resurrection, Castiel had confided in Dean about the mysterious restoration of his grace (another fact he credited to God) and had contritely apologized for inadvertently causing his charge any pain through this strange bond they seemed to share, promising that he would seek to "correct" it. The elder Winchester hadn't bothered bringing up the fact that without this useful connection between the two of them, as freaky as it was, one or both of them probably would've already died and _stayed_ dead before now. What Dean saw and felt in those moments of being bonded to a creature who was among those who called Heaven home, who had the power to see both ways throughout the spectrum of time was awesome and terrifying, beautiful and horrifying – but all the same, time and time again the visions had led him to Castiel.

Well fuck it all then, 'cause Dean too had seen both what had already been and what was to come, and although he hadn't the ability to change the past, he knew he sure as hell was going to change the future he saw. So he would willingly take the pain and the darkness, the bizarre and the insane to find his friend. And sure, that was weird, being more concerned about a distorted hallucination seen in a moment of brief neuronal malfunction than his own health – but so was searching for an angel who was looking for God and just so happened to run into the Devil instead.

"_Did it ever occur to you that maybe Lucifer raised you?" _

Almost unconsciously, Dean's hand slipped under the pillow beside his head, fingers gently brushing over the feather stowed away safely underneath. He cast his brother a sideways glance, but Sam seemed to be in full geek mode and for real this time, tapping insistently at the keys and starting at the screen with an intensity usually reserved for laser beams. Quietly the elder Winchester shifted, turning slightly sideways to conceal the plume from view as he pulled it out from its hiding place. It was great to have his brother actually on board with wanting to find the angel instead of just grudgingly going along with it because Dean wanted to, but still.

He ran gentle fingers over the length of the vane, amazed at its satiny smooth surface, at the almost velvety feel. The feather in and of itself was probably one of the thousands that made up the pair of wings, but Dean couldn't help but marvel at the fragility of the single quill. It slid against his calloused fingers like a piece of silk as he turned it over and over in his hands, the fine barbs tickling slightly against his palms. How was it possible for something so weightless and fragile to hold up a being of such supernatural and unbelievable might?

Sam would probably know, being the nerd he was. If he asked, the kid would probably start rattling off some lecture from long ago about wind currents and flight patterns and who knew what else, but for some reason, he hadn't asked Sam and Dean knew that he would never let spill that he'd found one of Castiel's feathers and was now sleeping with it under his pillow and going around throughout the day with the quill tucked securely in the inner pocket of his jacket, if the icy knot in his chest was any indication.

He wasn't ready for Sam to make fun of him for being such a girl about this just yet.

A weight of despair sunk into Sam's stomach as the hopeful lead he'd picked up about a missing man about the same age and with the same physical characteristics as Castiel's meat suit led smack dab into a dead end; his shoulders actually hunched upon their own accord and he exhaled slowly through his teeth, the sound almost deafening in the sudden quiet. _Well, that's not normal. _He glanced up, fingers stilling for the first time in about ten minutes; in that time he hadn't heard so much as a peep from Dean: neither loud complaint nor sighs of exasperation and as soon as he saw that his brother's back was turned toward him, the younger Winchester knew why.

There were basically two types of intelligence possessed by mankind: the kind amassed and stored up in the mind of scholars, and the kind learned by those who had naught but their wits – and since he just so happened to fall into both categories, Sam Winchester certainly wasn't stupid. Far from it, actually, cause one didn't get into Stanford on a full scholarship and know how to live life under about five different aliases without getting caught by being an idiot. He knew of the feather Dean kept hidden under the pillow, having seen it when the elder Winchester had been in the shower and Sam had been searching for where Dean put Castiel's phone, thinking that maybe the recent call log could've told them something they didn't already know.

Dean wasn't exactly a slob per se, but he'd never really been able to keep anything hidden from his little brother due to his rather interesting choice of arranging what very few personal possessions he owned – skin mags, the numbers and names of countless faceless girls scrawled down on sheets of loose leaf paper or on the back of receipts, that silver knife the elder Winchester had come to think of as his own, and some other objects Sam really wished he'd never found. And while he didn't find the phone this time around, as soon as Sam had seen the feather lying underneath the askew pillow, ever barb flattened and straightened out by gentle fingers, having been placed there so carefully, he immediately knew where it had to have come from.

He felt kind of guilty for keeping the other from soldiering on in efforts to locate the angel, but Sam knew Dean would work himself down to the bone and after seeing his brother's limbs thrashing at odd angles, head smashing backwards hard as green eyes rolled upwards, the younger Winchester refused to allow Dean to push himself further. Neither of them would be of any use to Castiel half-dead with exhaustion. _And besides,_ Sam reasoned with himself, _I think I've gotten the hang of how to attempt summoning-_

Suddenly, from right on the other side of the motel's thin walls, the unmistakable sounds of fluttering filled the silence. Dean jackknifed up off the bed with a great creaking of the springs, spinning around to face the door with unnatural grace, his hand reaching for the gun on the bedside table when a hysterical scream sliced through the air, a high-pitched wail of fear.

"The _hell_-" Sam jumped to his feet, fingers curling around the handle of Ruby's knife that lay on his bed and the Winchester brothers burst out of the room, nearly knocking the door off its hinges to the sight of a man dressed in a white uniform of some sort, looming over a familiar-looking little girl who lay sprawled on the ground, pale face upturned and wet with tears, features pinched in fear.

Without thinking, Dean stepped forward and emptied a round into the man's back, mindless of the consequences; all he knew was that this bastard was about to rip away the innocence of a child be it by death or molestation or whatever other sick perverted intention and the very thought sent rage exploding in his chest and rocketing through his veins, streaming down his arm that lifted the gun and into the fingers that fitted around the trigger and _squeezed_.

"_DEAN!_" Sam hollered above the gunshots and the little girl's terrified scream, the horror at his brother's actions turning into a different kind of dread when the man rotated sharply, completely unaffected by the freshly-pumped holes in his back, eyes a flashing obsidian shade. Muscles tensed, honed by years of experience and the younger Winchester threw himself boldly at the demon, one forearm ramming into the man's stomach in an improvised tackle and barely managing to direct the fall away from the girl who was scooting away, plunging the blade into the man's chest and deep into the heart.

_Whoa._ Dean's eyebrows jumped upwards involuntarily at the other's quick reflexes and impressive attack; there was no doubt that in another lifetime, Sam could've made an impressive linebacker. Such a move usually signaled the end of a regular old hunt, and Dean would go over and help his little brother off the ground, thumping the Sasquatch on the back in congratulations as they stumbled back to wherever the Impala had been parked out back, pretending not to lean on each other in accordance to the severity of their wounds. At the current moment though, the elder Winchester had his arms awkwardly full of a crying little girl who'd rushed to him after scrambling out of the way of danger and was now doing a fine impression of an octopus, clinging to him, tears wetting his shirt as she hiccupped against his shoulder with small shuddering breaths. _Um. _"Hey, little-" _Wait. What's her name again? Joy?_ "Joy?" Dean tried quietly, and the mussed little brown head lifted, huge watery eyes staring at him from behind messily tousled hair. "Are you okay?"

Her lower lip trembled and Dean panicked for an instant, eyes scanning the parking lot wildly and resting on Sam, who standing on his own, looking a little sore but none worse for the wear. Someone was going to find two grown men with guns, a rapidly cooling body, and a freaked out crying child suspicious sooner or later, and where the hell were her parents, anyway? _Oh, right. Never had a mom and the deadbeat Dad is…what was it? Gone?_ Shifting the light weight on his hip, Dean shrugged helplessly when Sam lifted an eyebrow questioningly, gaze sliding past to the fallen demon-

_Hold it._ His eyes narrowed, and Dean stepped closer to the body. "Turn him over, Sam," he instructed quietly, because he knew that face paired with that uniform and the logo he could now make out, had seen it only once before but had memorized the image, had seen it the black eyes staring mockingly down at him as he (_as Castiel?_) convulsed uncontrollably, comfortingly pressing Joy's head against his shoulder again when the girl shifted because who knew how traumatized she already was and she didn't need to be seeing this anyway.

Ramiel twined Joy's skinny little arms around the hunter's sturdy torso and leaned against his chest, sighing quietly as her cheek pressed comfortably against the soft fabric of his checkered shirt. It was surprising, how similar his embrace was to Michael's, compared to when the Lord's foremost warrior had scooped his injured sister up in strong arms and flew homeward with his burden of wounded joy.

And for the first time then, the angel of joy saw just a sliver of the goodness in Dean Winchester that had led her little brother to disobedience and exile, felt just a bit of the brightness Castiel always saw in the soul of the Righteous Man.

* * *

"It's been a while, hasn't it?" Lucifer asked conversationally, leaning almost casually against the wall. Belial grit his teeth, eyes raking up and down his brother's meat suit disapprovingly because _**God**__ damn you Lucifer,_ the oriental rug the Devil was getting his dirty footprints all over hadn't been cheap.

"Certainly." Thomas Hartley's molars gnashed together in what must've been a painful manner, if the way the demon riding around in his skin bit out the words was any indication. "Far. Too. Long. _Brother._" For fuck's sake, he _really_ needed a drink.

The Morning Star watched with some amusement as Belial more or less stomped across the marble floor and toward the bar, turning his back on the other and slamming a tumbler down onto the countertop, fuming. His brother seemed to have done well in his absence, Lucifer noted, making a name for himself as the prince of decadence and extravagance, master of falsehoods and Lord of lies. The other seraph had always been a powerful and skilled warrior as well as an instrumental ally, simultaneously loyal and not overly ambitious – but intelligent, and thoroughly knowledgeable of what he wanted.

Lucifer knew he would have to tread carefully with this one.

In a breath, the Devil shot through space and time to land directly in front of his subordinate, watching with some interest as Belial barely gave the casual display of power a glance, too busy tossing back what looked like glass after glass of Jack Daniels without a moment's pause for breath. "Aren't you going to offer me something?"

_Go fuck yourself._ Belial was aware of the less than impressive image he presented, with the vulgar language more reminiscent of a simpleton than Hell's second prince and the way he threw back the alcohol, like a drunkard. Perhaps he would take up smoking; that always seemed to exude an air of sophistication. "You don't drink," he snarled, fingers clenching tightly around the tumbler and turning to face the other fallen angel, who wore a bemused look. Belial forced himself to take a deep breath, to maintain at least a small shred dignity for appearance's sake. "Why are you here, Lucifer?"

The Devil shrugged nonchalantly, an oddly human gesture. "Am I not allowed to pay a visit to my own brother and oldest friend?"

And now it was Belial to flare up, composure shattering violently; the Lord of lust blinked out and back into the transcendental plane, standing so close to the Son of Perdition that the demon could see the former angel's grace burning, burning through his temporary vessel's thinning skin. "Do _NOT_ take me for a fool, Lucifer," he hissed softly, all deadly and corrosive acid oozing under the surface. "You have no friends; only tools and instruments for your sad little scheme for world domination that has yet to come to fruition, even after getting sent to the timeout chair for the better part of eternity."

"Your accusation is…scathing," Lucifer said slowly, with a thoughtful blink and in a tone that made it seem as if he was saying _'The sky is blue. Humans are mindless, hairless apes. I will smite you with my brain'._ "But I suppose, not without truth."

"_You_-" The tightly strung spider web's thread of Belial's dangling composure snapped with the realization; the glass he held shattered and the demon shoved his superior against the wall, but with far less force than both of them knew he could've used. A corner of Lucifer's mouth quirked upward; it was always rather amusing to see his brother just lose it. The Mid-Atlantic Rift had been formed when the Lord of lust flew at the Lord's messenger archangel in a blind fury and had gotten tossed into the foaming waters below. And Mount Vesuvius? That had been Belial as well, throwing a fit when Gabriel once again stole his little brother safely away from the fallen angel.

"DARE you question my loyalties, serpent?" Belial raged, arm pressed against the other's throat. As Lucifer was the most powerful of the sons of fire, there was no doubt that the Morning Star could've wiped the floor with his brother, with _any_ brother, but at the present moment Belial was far beyond caring. The all-consuming rage that had been bubbling and festering at the demon's core for the past few months came exploding to the surface, spitting sparks and curses, hurling an accusation in seven demonic tongues all at once- "_When you yourself have not held true to your word-"_

"You speak of Castiel." Well, that was one thing that had not changed. _Belial my brother, you remain so sadly predictable. _

"**DEAD!**" Belial bellowed viciously. "_Wasted_ by Raphael before I even had the chance to take him-" The Lord of lust was seeing red, and not in a good way when Lucifer chortled suddenly, vibrations in his meat suit's throat rumbling out amusement, but also a note of warning.

"Why are you angry at me, Belial, when I was the one who resurrected your precious little Castiel, and can deliver him to you yet?"

_He soundlessly approached the brightly burning soul perched lightly next to the furthest gates of Heaven, closest to the realm of Creation below, watching every stirring of the small and unimpressive muted grey wings, noting every changing dimension of the lesser angel's grace with a shiver – and with every single flicker of light captured in this little brother's opalescent sapphire eyes, Belial felt a tug of an unknowable __**yearning**__in the core of his being. _

_Castiel was not mighty in any sense of the word; he lacked power and strength and experience, and his commanders saw him as inept, skills few and far in between. And yes, while the young one had been able to capture not only his attention but that of Gabriel's as well, Belial's mind darkened in confusion, for he did not know why, just exactly why he found himself drawn to this weakling of one of the sons of fire. And yet the more the seraph tried to comprehend the lure, the more insistent the longing in his soul became, like a physical burn that seared slowly across his grace until he wanted nothing more than to reach into his being and tear it out, fling it away, and replace it with nothing but Castiel, all of this little brother, only overwhelming blue eyes and the embers of purity. _

_Ramiel seemed to notice the shift in him as well and Belial always maintained the opinion that this sister had always been too intrusive for her own good; didn't she know that prying into every detail of other's souls was simply mannerless? She was nowhere to be seen now though, so Belial reached forward toward what he saw, felt the scorch of the unspeakable ache in his soul, and __**took.**_

_The lesser angel glanced upwards at the hand upon his shoulder, countenance bright and curious, but otherwise unchanged from moments prior. Clearly he knew nothing of Belial's position or title, and the seraph felt a sense of pleasure at the anonymity. "Castiel, is it?" He received a polite, guileless nod in reply and shook his wings loose; the arches curved over the other, effectively hiding the smaller being from sight, for no one had the right to look upon Castiel, no one but Belial alone. "And what are you doing?"_

"_I am looking after our Father's creations," Castiel answered softly, shy but bright. He turned, interested eyes peering through the borders of the firmament and down below. "Fish of the sea, beast of the air and of the ground…they are all so wonderful," he breathed, and Belial stepped closer, close enough to feel the joyful ripple of Castiel's grace. "But none so glorious as Man and Woman." _

"_Do you favor them?" The seraph queried in low tones, hand sweeping up gently along the smooth curve of his little brother's neck. _

"_They were made in His image," the blue eyes were earnest when they turned upon him, unknowing or unaware of just what they did to Belial, how those bottomless orbs twisted his core into distortion. "They are beautiful and our Father commanded us to love them." _

_Belial's fingers were tracing up along the slope of Castiel's jaw, stroking back and forth, when the words pierced through him, and suddenly the seraph knew. He no longer wanted Castiel to fill his soul; he wanted to take this brother away to be his and his alone forevermore, he wanted Castiel's thoughts to be on none but him, he desired to take __**all**__ of the lesser angel and to strip his grace down to the flaming nucleus, and then Belial would crush the blazing orb for himself._

"_Do you realize that you are beautiful, Castiel?" He murmured, watching Castiel's grace shudder bashfully at the praise; the seraph reached out with his other hand to grasp, to rent and slash and plunge within the beauty trapped between the walls of his wings, to mark Castiel as __**his**__ – and all that suddenly, his hand was crashing against the breastplate of a far different brother and Belial took a step away from Gabriel's glorious visage, his wings folding smoothly against his back._

_The messenger archangel had always been able to appear amongst his kin with the most fluid elegance and swiftness, but his splendid might was nothing to overlook, either. Strangely enough it was only when standing next to or near Gabriel that Belial always felt a certain awareness of his own limitations, never with any of the other archangels or seraphim. But in this instance, Belial would not relent, he would not submit to his elder brother when Castiel unquestionably belonged to __**him**__._

"_Do not be discourteous, Gabriel." Castiel was standing behind the archangel and a bit off to the side after having been swept apart there by Gabriel's enormous wing, soul's light diminished in slight confusion and it would've been so easy to just stretch out and take him. "Surely you know our Lord disapproves of avarice." Belial's gaze was fixed upon his prize and the seraph reached out-_

_-only to be blocked by Gabriel's silver wing. The archangel's soul was expertly cloaked from inquisitive eyes and he spoke quietly, but with evident authority. "Thou forgetest thy place, Belial." _

_The something of tightness and unnamable want that had been coiling tightly in the seraph erupted at the admonishment, fracturing in cracks of sparking flame and tongues of spitting lightening. Belial's crimson wings rose high above him, spread out to their widest length and for one revealing moment, his beautiful face of fiery haze burst into charred ashes of disfigured and ghastly misshapenness. _

_Throughout this breathtaking display of outrage, Gabriel stood silent and stoic, unafraid – but the same could not be said for the one who stood behind him, another witness to this rare display. Grace folding in upon itself nervously and shaking in terror, Castiel's wings beat once to bring him to Gabriel's side, pressing closely against the archangel's towering frame. While he might not have known the reason behind the seraph's fury, Castiel was reacting in the only way he knew how in a moment of fear, seeking out comfort and safety in hiding behind his elder brother's enormous silver wings. _

_Belial saw this and the anger funneled down into a vise, smoldering dangerously. When Gabriel glanced down at the quivering mass of little Castiel clutching at his robe, the archangel cast not only his wing, but a strong arm around his little brother – and Belial folded himself backwards and out of sight, rocketing blindly throughout the open places of the firmament at the obvious rejection. He tore across space and Heaven, through Creation until at last the seraph's mighty wings gave out and he collapsed, dazed but still choking on the smoke of desire and fury swirling in his soul. _

"_Hello, brother." _

_Glancing upwards, Belial gazed upon the brilliance of Lucifer the bright Morning Star, and finally tore his grace out; hurling it down into the abyss to take back that which rightfully belonged to him.

* * *

_

_They were awesome and stunning, beauty beyond compare, breathtaking and…quite comfortable, as well. Castiel tilted his head, grace shimmering in awe and fascination as he ran his fingers through his brother's silver wings. When an arm that had wielded sword and carried trumpet curved around him in a solid and secure hold, the lesser angel merely leaned further into the embrace, pressing his cheek against the silken surfaces, mystified and in wonder, yet still perfectly at ease. _

_It was the flicker of amusement, adoration and tenderness through the archangel's soul that caused Castiel to pull away sharply, embarrassed and timidly bowing his head. Who was he to be leaning upon he who sat at the left hand of the Almighty? The other silver wing, thrumming with gracefully contained power was amazing gentle when it crooked and a long flight feather slid underneath Castiel's chin, lifting his face until his eyes met Gabriel's, full of warmth and love. "Hello, Castiel." _

_Wonders of wonders, the messenger archangel knew him by name! Castiel's soul sang for joy and without further ado he leaned back into his elder brother's comforting embrace, the terrifying spectacle of Belial's anger fleeing his mind. The light of Heaven shone through the feathers that surrounded him and Castiel reached out to grasp them-_

"Where are you, Leonard?" Meg dipped a hand into the frigid water and flicked her fingers, laughing when the liquid caught the dazed and drugged angel in the face, making him sputter incoherently. The demon girl leaned over the side of the tub, tiptoeing her fingers across the surface of the water and then down beneath, brushing against numb, freezing flesh in a playful, teasing manner.

"Come on, angel boy. Let's see if you can get it up without your super-charged Heavenly steroid juice."

_A/N: Okay. Whew. Long chapter. Hopefully everyone was able to keep up! Ramiel is certainly the talented little actress, isn't she? And question: who's got dibbs on being the favorite villain now, Lucifer or Belial? _

_Well, I won't be able to update anytime soon, due to the mad rush of shopping for gifts and the mandatory family time (and besides, something tells me that you guys won't like reading a bunch of angst while trying to sing Joy to the World). So, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or Happy Winter Solstice, and I'll see you all in 2010! Until then, please review!_

_P.S. I say this very tentatively, but I do have the desire to write something fluffy and Christmas-y related, maybe a one-shot with some of the OCs or the Winchester boys and Castiel? If you like the idea, prompt me! _


	7. Torn

_A/N: Happy New Year, everyone! I hope that 2010 turns out to be as fabulous a year for all of you as 2009 was for me. I've really had a lot of fun writing this series, and here's to hoping that you guys keep reading! Watch out though, this is one LONG chapter. Enjoy! _

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel, Belial, and Ramiel belong to me_

It was truly astonishing and more than somewhat frightening just how much harm could be done to the whole tapestry of Creation by just a single loose thread, unraveling across the entire cosmos and undoing the perfect works of the hands of Almighty God. A single drop of blood in the ocean didn't pollute the entire body of water, and yet one act of insurrection was enough to tear a jagged gap in the bond between Father and the Morning Star; a chasm amongst those of the same kindred that was unbridgeable by any wish for mending the trust that had already been broken beyond repair.

Before the fall, there had never been any sense of transgressions against God's divine law, although all of the sons and daughters of flame knew what their Father approved and disapproved of; as opposed to humanity, they were thoroughly informed of the difference between righteousness and that which was profane. However, as wise as the angels of the Lord were made, even they did not fully comprehend the consequences or the possibility of one of their own rebelling against their Creator. In their vast wells of understanding, evil was merely a word, a concept akin to a random term tossed into a newspaper article to up its reading level like "monumental", or "tragedy"; overused to the point of becoming banal and clichéd, true importance never known until true evil actually broke down the barriers of the purity in Heaven itself, giving way to a battle between brother and sister to the eternal death.

After being cast down from the Most Holy of Holy places, the fallen carved out their own realm in the emptiness below, creating their own kingdom where their champion the Prince of Darkness lorded over his fallen kin and brought into existence a new race of twisted creatures of sin to do his bidding. In his all-consuming arrogance and greed, Lucifer vowed to not only return and overthrow his Father from the throne, but to conquer the Earth as well; to prove that humankind was as worthless as he first declared and thus undeserving of the devotion of their heavenly counterparts and unworthy of God's merciful love.

In so short an amount of time, the Deceiver had been able to twist and distort the hearts and minds of man, turning them against the Lord and leaving the soldiers of righteousness in a timeless battle for the souls of the sons and daughters of the Earth.

_Two large, creamy white colored wings beat mightily against the black smoke funneling out everywhere over the plain, splendor visible only for an instant as they arched away from the back of the slight figure, seeming too large and far too magnificent to be a part of this shabbily-dressed, dirty-faced young woman. Indeed the angels of the Lord had never before been compelled to take on any form other than their own, and yet to appear in the presence of mankind, their power was so great and unfathomable in the presence of man's weak minds and fragile constitutions that it was necessary for such holiness to be confined in cages of sinew, tissue, and skin. _

_The young man kneeling before the adolescent girl lifted his face, tears streaming from colorless eyes devoid of their irises. "Sister," the fallen angel within croaked hoarsely, reaching out one shaking hand. "Ramiel, please – be merciful."_

"_To everything there is a season," Ramiel answered quietly, leveling her blade at the other's throat. Her soul shone with the steel of steadfast determination, sharper than the holy weapon she held. "The time for mercy has passed; now all that remains is judgment from above." _

_Baraqel grabbed his former sister's hand in desperation, pleadingly, bowing over the small palm; salty droplets cut through the trails of blood streaming down the dark skin. "Forgiveness, sister, I beg of you. Our Father's love and grace transcends all-"_

"_Only the Everlasting has such power, fallen one," Ramiel interrupted. "And I do not speak for the Lord." Leaning forward, the angel lowered the sword and instead touched her vessel's chapped lips gently, almost kindly to the demon's forehead – the only measure of compassion she could express. Baraqel screamed, agony and horrified incredulity twisted into a single, long wail as he was driven from the suit of meat and bones and back to the depths of damnation and Ramiel caught the vessel's head as the young man went limp, carefully laying him on the ground. _

_There was no great shout of exultation, no victory cry as the young woman straightened, gazing around herself at the great multitude of those slain by her hand. Ramiel only felt a deep rooted sorrow stemming from her very core for she remembered once lifting a great many of these same souls from the swirling strands of chaos and oblivion, unfolding different dimensions of graces, soothing out many a damp and newly fragile wing. The angel of joy was not a foe to be taken lightly for Ramiel was anything but weak, and she was ever faithful to the Lord, to be sure – but even after so many years of struggle against those that had fallen, she still remembered the time when she once loved each and every one of them. _

_**Heeoa od akele, aldi a-ai-om.**_

_The edict resounded in Ramiel's mind and so the angel took flight, spreading her wings far across the destruction below and followed the sound of her superior's voice, appearing as a star speeding across the skies, nearly invisible to the mortal eye and yet enchanting to those who caught but a glimpse of the angel of joy's flight. She moved across hill and vale, through mist and shadow only to land in the middle of a barren wasteland, vessel's bare feet coming to rest upon ground dry and cracked, devoid of life. _

"_Cnoquol baloth?" she called out to her kin, voice echoing across the deserted wilderness – and received no answer. Instantly, Ramiel's wings snapped inward and folded against her vessel's back; she pivoted sharply and thrust herself backwards through space, putting a great distance separating herself and the approaching creature of darkness she sensed, grace thrumming with defensive revulsion and chagrin upon having been deceived into the demon's snare. "Belial." _

"_Hello, sister," Hell's Second Prince greeted pleasantly, his vessel's lips twitching upwards into a smile – and it was a handsome vessel indeed, but not even comely features molded from the dust of the Earth could hide the grotesque monstrosity beneath. Here was the brother who'd once been among the most beautiful and glorious of the seraphim; he was the fallen angel who spoke the first falsehood into man's ear, the demon who had introduced the sinful pleasures of the flesh, perverting love with the deadly tendrils of lust. Belial easily closed the gap between them, running appraising eyes up and down Ramiel's vessel. "And you look lovely, as always." _

"_Your flattery is poison, __**amma tliob**_**.**" _Ramiel's voice was soft; her movements were swift, sure as she drew her sword and Belial chuckled good-naturedly._

"_What's this, Ramiel? Are you going to kill me with kindness?" the demon taunted, taking out his own blade forged of sulfur and sin, caked with the blood of his former kin and burnished with sheets of their shattered grace. "Well, come on. Let us play then, shall we?" _

_Brother and sister flew at each other, swords clashing against one another and sending up showering sparks of holy flame and hellfire, emitting forked tongues of lightening and the screams of those who'd already perished by their cutting edges that promised descent into the clutches of the Abyss. One fought for the honor and glory of her Father's name, whilst the other exchanged blows merely for the sake of slaughter and destruction, for wiping out yet another celestial being who dared to remain a part of that which he'd already forsaken. The demon attacked with raw strength and power, but the soldier of the Lord avoided and parried each blow with grace and fluid dexterity, bending wind and air to her advantage. Their dance was not a practiced one, for the pair had never engaged in combat before, but each step seemed intentional and preordained, choreographed in a way that gave the impression that the Almighty Himself had planned such an encounter – to what ends, still remained unclear. Day stretched its hours into twilight and began to dip hesitant strands into nightfall; there was no telling how long the struggle would continue and so fierce was the battle that neither participant had breath or ability to summon assistance. _

_Agile fingers twirled about the handle of the sword, abruptly changing grip and slashed upwards; the holy blade sliced through polluted flesh forever tainted and rendered impure, producing gouts of blood that spurt forth from the deep wound. Belial howled out a curse, fingers scrabbling at the edges of the gash spanning the length of his vessel's torso as the man he wore pitched forward, landing heavily on his knees. The demon dropped his weapon and instead reached for what appeared to be a cask made of clay at his hip, swinging his arm forward and sending the contents toward the angel's form._

_She reacted instinctively, wings springing outwards to wrap around her vessel and the fluid coated the pair of white beauty, disgusting viscosity seeping all the way through the appendages. Bewildered, Ramiel slowly lifted the matted feathers away, shaking her wings and sending forth dual streams of grace in an attempt to clean the semi-solid substance away, but to no avail. She turned her gaze upon her former brother, grimacing slightly at the drops of thick stickiness clinging to pinion feathers and sliding across the lengths of the shafts, to find Belial climbing slowly to his feet, a maniacal glint in his eye. _

"_I always did think you needed to lighten up a bit, dear sister." With that, the demon snapped two fingers together, flint struck against steel and he cast the blazing orb at the angel's oil-sodden wings._

_Ramiel's piercing cry of anguish rent the grey sky in two. _

_The angel vacated her vessel, her true voice reaching up into the Heavens where her incinerating wings could not carry her and she fell headlong to the earth; the fire licking its way over the wings still attached to her back seared blackened craters into the ground. The stench of burning plumage filled the air as the angel writhed in the dirt, screaming unintelligibly for mercy as hellfire converging upon holy fire in the two blazing infernos seared thousands of nerves and tendons into uselessness, scattering ragged feathers and ash everywhere. _

A calloused hand swept aside the lumpy pillow, picking up the single feather with careful fingers that ran meticulously over the barbs from base to tip, smoothing out the quill with amazing gentleness. Joy sat on the edge of the mattress, small little feet swinging _thump thump thump _against the bed as her round eyes peered easily past the thin motel wall, gazing into the neighboring room with rapt attention.

"-and the CDC shut down the basement level of the psychiatric ward because of asbestos problems; it's not used for anything now besides storage and so that's your best bet for getting-" A pair of hands stilled their earnest delineation across the blueprint unfurled upon the table. "Dean, are you even _listening_?"

"Yeah, Sammy. I'm all ears. Creepy, crawly underground tunnel. Gotcha." It wasn't entirely a lie, because after all, Dean _had_ heard what his brother said; he'd been listening to Sam's elaborate strategy on how to break into the Prowers County Psychiatric Ward for the past two days, but at this current moment, the elder Winchester was a _bit_ preoccupied with something a little more important, like where in the _hell_ was he going to keep the only piece of Cas he had left?

_Stupid uniforms. Why aren't there any pockets in these pants?_ Dean shifted his weight from foot to foot in the seriously tacky white sneakers the two of them had pilfered from the demon after disposing of the body. There was no way he was going to stick it in his shoe, because there was no way he could bring himself to step on it after seeing Zachariah casually shaking the ragged edges of bloodstained feathers off of the bottom of his black shiny oxfords- _Damn it, __**no**__. Not thinking of that._

At least this was better than the last time the angel had landed himself in some serious hot water with a freakin' archangel, when he had stupidly decided to pull the martyr card (_Guess that really makes Cas one of us now, huh? Self-sacrifice in the true Winchester way.)_. Of course that seemed counterintuitive, since this time around, they were tangling with the Big Bad Wolf and Bossman of all demons, Lucifer himself. Still, somehow, things seemed a bit less _I've got seven whiny toddlers who are all screaming "mine" in the middle of the grocery store, oh my GOD_ type of hectic and a bit more like…controlled chaos. Kinda. Maybe.

_Maybe…?_ Dean cast an uneasy glance at the front of the hideous white drawstring pants, and immediately grimaced. _Yeah, __**no**__. _The idea of sticking a fragment of a holy and pure celestial being down his pants was ten sorts of wrong and probably about a hundred sorts of profane. Plus, he really didn't need a ticket to whatever special Hell he'd be reserving himself a seat in.

Scratch that. This was a hundred times worse than before.

Sam sighed, staring at his brother's back, at the way the repaired shirt rippled slightly as Dean's shoulders tensed, as they always did when the elder Winchester was struggling with an issue of some sort (as it turned out, the same receptionist girl who'd been crushing on him from earlier just so happened to be really good at mending and stitching with no questions asked so long as he kept flashing a less-than-six hundred watt smile at her all while doing his best to polish off his rusty flirting skills). He knew the other was running on nothing but adrenaline and the double shot espresso he'd practically forced his brother to drink about an hour ago (_"It's a two hour drive, Sammy. I don't need coffee, I __**am**__ awake.")_. The very fact that Dean Winchester was even _up_ at the ungodly hour of six o'clock in the morning was probably because the hunter had spent the entire night tossing and turning, getting up out of bed and pacing around, walking to the window, staring out at who knew what. "Dean?"

"What." _Breast pocket, it is. _Why the hell did the damn uniform have one pocket on the friggin' shirt and nowhere else? _Talk about crappy fashion sense. _

"Are you sure you're okay with this?"

Dean turned, jaw set tightly. "Sam, if you ask me that one more time, I swear I'm gonna-"

"Okay," Sam surrendered, holding up his hands before his brother blew a gasket, just another indication that the only thing going through Dean's head at this moment at about a hundred miles per hour was probably a whirlwind of emotions and high-strung tension. Honestly, the younger Winchester would've gone himself, if not for the problem of the uniform being a bit too narrow for his broad shoulders. "Got the ID?"

Hazel green eyes so very like his own rolled impatiently and the elder Winchester flashed the photoshopped name badge in his direction, a flick of the wrist. "C'mon man, we're burnin' daylight. Are we good?"

She scooted backwards onto the bed, leaning back and sinking into the pillows. Carefully, for the child's corporeal being was so very fragile in so many ways, Ramiel centralized her grace and slipped away from her vessel slowly, ever so slowly until the angel herself stood in the middle of the room, taking great caution in cloaking every single strand that wove together her faintly glowing soul. And as the Chevy Impala roared out of the lot, she painstakingly unfurled her wings and Ramiel prayed, silently beseeching her absent Father (to whom she still remained faithful) that the Righteous Man could rescue and deliver her little brother; hoping with every fiber of her being that her veiled guidance would be enough to aid Dean Winchester in saving Castiel when she herself could not.

* * *

Men had come a long way since the days of carrying clubs and sleeping in caves, dragging their knuckles through the dirt, and kidnapping those whom they viewed as suitable mates by force. Sure, nowadays the clubs and caves were exchanged for briefcases and four poster king-sized beds and the ropes with which the primitive man tied up his mate replaced with engagement rings, but one thing had remained the same and it was the simple inescapable fact that when a man saw a potential partner, he pulled out all the stops and used every trick in the book to make her his and his alone.

Some chose to be the Hugh Heffner type, with wine and song and recycling through girls month by month (also known as: the jackasses); others appealed to their own softer side buried beneath layers of ruggedness and machismo, making all sorts of weird and sometimes pointless sacrifices that dealt stunning blows to both his pride and his pocket ("_Sure_ I'll carry your purse at the mall; of _course_ I'll buy you that Tiffany's necklace"), and still others put on the façade of being the handsome prince astride the white horse, sweeping his intended off her feet with charm and promises that they ultimately failed to fulfill.

Silly boys. If they only knew that there were many types of girls in the word, many numerous different classifications of the female species – and for every up there was a down, for every north a south, for every ying there was a yang – then they probably wouldn't have to try so hard once they realized that somewhere out there, there was someone exactly right for them.

There were the sweet, innocent little white bread, Protestant girls who either married respectfully and always kept their adorable children in line or rebelled against daddy's wishes and ran off to Vegas with the boy in the black leather jacket on the back of his big black Harley. There were the simple, honest girls who spent their whole lives doing nothing for themselves and working for their parents and their siblings who in the end got their own happily ever afters with the rugged but kindhearted boy who invited her out to coffee and actually paid, and who let her drive his beat up old Ford pickup truck because she'd never had a car of her own. There were the tomboys, the girls who always hung out with all the guys but were never really able to get one to like her like _that_, and then there were the independent girls, those who set their noses to the grindstone and never asked for anything in their lives, not a boy to catch her or to pick up the pieces of her dreams when they shattered or a loving embrace for when the tears kept coming and just wouldn't stop.

And, of course, there were the promiscuous types, who pounced upon whatever fresh meat they could find.

Over the past few hundred years of her existence, Meg considered herself to be of the latter category and surprise, surprise; she fucking loved every second of it.

After all, there were just so many fun boy toys in the world, so many wild stallions to tame and _ride until no tomorrow,_ so many flavors to sample – and she'd taken a bite out of all of them. The shy virgins who were all vanilla and cheap beer before she ripped their pretty little baby faces off (those idiot college boys really weren't as experienced as they thought), the porn stars who get a little boring after a while with their matza-like tongues (they probably learned how to fuck from a damn manual; their moves were all the same anyway), the eight-to-five breadwinners who sometimes just needed a break from the chaos of the nagging wife and the screaming kids and the moronic boss (who tasted like coffee and one too many licks of the envelope), and the married man who was just approaching that terrible seven-year itch that just desperately needed to be _scratched_.

Yes, she considered herself to be a professional at her art, a well-seasoned master, slinking throughout the dirty underbellies of the world while wearing different faces or sometimes just popping into some random girl's meat suit for a night that the clueless boyfriend would surely _never_ forget – but never in her wildest fantasies (and boy, did they get _wild_) had Meg ever _dreamed_ of getting the chance to taste an angel.

She might not have cared much about Azazel's idiot plan in the making, but Meg had to admit, having the ringing in of the apocalypse and the Prince of Darkness walking the earth was like winning the lottery; it was just so much _fun_. Not like being the only girl in a massive group orgy back in Greece during the festival of Dionysus type of fun or laughing in the faces of priests and their stupid attempts at an exorcism, but the type of fun she hadn't had in centuries – but the type of entertainment she'd had that time she slipped into the small town's Southern Baptist Preacher's daughter and then went and screwed daddy dearest senseless (what can she say? Meg knew she'd always had the hots for her own father; she was the freakin' poster girl for Freud and Jung's Electra complex).

But this…oh, this, _this_ was so much better.

She had a thing for power too; it was true – after all, why else had she gone after Sam Winchester, that lumbering meathead? Maybe it had been intuition about Lucifer's true vessel (or maybe she'd just wanted a fun time. Besides, Sammy did have some huge hands…and you know what they say about big hands). But whatever the case, Meg never let anyone in on it but she'd always wanted to steal a fiery kiss from an emissary from above, drawn like a moth to the flame or an upstanding teenage boy and the tempting skin mags in the gas station's convenience store. Call it a dirty little secret, a guilty pleasure and her own personal masturbation fuel – but Lucifer had somehow picked up on it and far from how she thought Hell's Overlord would have reacted, he'd in fact rewarded her with her very own angel.

Meg loved her dear father _so_ very much.

And what a toy he was! The blue button eyes actually lit up with tears (although they never fell, which was a bit of a disappointment), the pale flesh actually colored and bruised beautifully when she whacked him against the wall and floor and apparently he didn't like sitting in hydrotherapy tubs for hours upon hours. Didn't seem too big on getting zapped, either – which was really a shame, since _that_ was one of Meg's very favorite games. And in any case, it was her job to make sure that Leonard got his proper treatment, right?

"Morning, angel," she smiled sweetly, running red-nailed fingers through her patient's dark brown rumpled sex hair that still seemed impossibly soft even though his special Heaven-infused steroids (or whatever the hell they called it) had been dampened by the Son of Perdition. As the clouded eyes rolled in her direction, Meg grinned prettily and tightened the leather strap across his chest another notch, wondering if she might actually get a scream out past those pretty, pouty lips this time.

And who knew? Maybe she'd even take the time to spend some alone time with the angel. After all, Meg mused as she turned the dial with a careless flick of her fingers, there had to be a reason why Belial was so intent on wanting to fuck little Castiel's brains out.

* * *

The sleek, black Impala slid smoothly into the empty parking space nestled between a junky, busted up Camaro that had seem better days _(yeah, probably a hundred years ago_) and an obnoxiously shiny BMW that just screamed _I'm a major douchebag who's obviously compensating for something_, motor rumbling low like the growl building in Dean's throat as he killed the engine and stared up at the prison that claimed a holy messenger of God as an inmate, at the fortress inside which his friend was trapped, at the mental asylum that had absolutely no business keeping an angel against his will…except the Prowers County Psychiatric Ward looked nothing like a prison. In fact, it looked a right sight better than a lot of the places the Winchesters had stayed in before, including a prison (or two).

And to tell the truth, that was what sent chills racing up his spine more than anything else, 'cause in his experience, sometimes under the most harmless appearances ended up lurking the toughest, most monstrous sons of bitches the hunter had ever met.

Slowly, he stepped out of the car and raked an appraising eye over the large and rather impressive structure, at the little rows of multi-colored petunias lining the walkways leading up to the main entrance. The place really didn't look half bad; it was sort of a mix with the small-town inn's hominess and a freakin' mansion's square acreage. And yet there was something off about the place, something dangerous and secretly terrifying that made all of the hunter's internal warning alarms start blaring- _Oh yeah, maybe it's the fact that the friggin' Devil is using this place as his own personal Guantanamo Bay._ The fire in the pit of his stomach reignited and raced a roaring stretch up his esophagus, decided to take a pit stop in his chest and subsequently exploded; all of Sam's plans of entering discreetly by the underground basement level or whatever fled his mind and hazel green eyes narrowed into glints of hard emerald.

The car door slammed with much more force than necessary and the security cameras caught sight of the orderly striding across the parking lot with the look of a being possessed before the center set of double doors at the entrance of the psychiatric ward slammed open, revealing the man who'd impulsively burst in like the hero in an old Hollywood Western, Wyatt Earp with guns out and blazing, ready for the blistering shootout to the death behind the OK Corral-

-and no one paid him a bit of attention.

_O-kay…_ Dean blinked, staring around himself at the one or two nurses milling about with their heads bent studiously over clipboards, at the rest of the staff who were locked up inside the cage-like "care center" on the other side of security glass walls and a desk from behind which they dispensed drugs at timely hours of the day, at the semicircle of dazed looking patients draped across the green vinyl couches like empty potato sacks in what seemed to be the common dayroom. _Oh, this is just great. Now all I have to do is make sure not to get ganked by Nurse Ratched and we're good to go. _The hunter began making his way down the sparkling white hallway with white walls rising up on either side and no wonder he was blending into the surroundings so well in the colorless uniform he wore. And now all of this had him wondering how on earth the idiots who designed the place expected the crazy people they housed to get any better in a place like this.

_Stop it, Dean,_ a little Sammy voice in the back of his mind chastised firmly, and Dean could just see his brother's bitch face number forty-one; or was it twenty-six? Geez, the kid sure had a lot of them… _One in four of all Americans are recorded as suffering from a mental illness per year, and that's just the ones who feel comfortable enough to admit themselves- _

_Yeah, yeah, shut up Sammy, _he mentally groused and almost coughed up a bitter little laugh at the irony of talking to himself while wandering aimlessly around a friggin' psych ward. The elder Winchester's eyes jumped from the middle-aged nurse gently guiding a babbling man away from where he'd been serenading the wall ("Come on dear, let's get your medicine") to the group of less than thrilled individuals who sat arranged in a circle, presumably talking about their feelings ("And now I want everyone to _close_ their eyes and imagine how they would react differently…") and _what the hell_, he was getting seriously freaked out. Dean shook his head hard; even he felt like his brain was slowly turning to a pile of mush, and he'd readily admit that between him and Sam, the both of them had enough problems to probably keep the world's top psychologists occupied for months – Mom dying in a traumatic experience, Dad turning into the toughest, most jaded SOB in existence and becoming more drill sergeant than father, Sammy running off to Stanford only to get the rug of normality jerked out from under his feet, neither of them had a conventional job (they hunted _monsters_, for Christ's sake!) and thus no steady income, who knew how much they drank – so yeah, throw the Winchesters into the loony bin and they'd fit right in, no sweat.

_But not Cas._

Castiel, holy angel of the Lord and stupid tax accountant with no sense of personal space; Castiel the renegade who had rebelled against his dickhead brothers for the sake of saving the world; Castiel, who'd faced down archangels for Dean's sake; Cas, his friend. He was too holy, too pure, too freakin' _good_ for this dark and ugly world that didn't deserve to have the light of the angel's presence and Cas just didn't belong anywhere on Earth, much less a goddamn mental hospital.

Ramiel shook her head with a sigh. Aside from apparently not knowing the meaning of acting inconspicuous and being markedly inattentive to detail when wrapped up in his own contemplation, Dean Winchester was also one very loud human. It was a wonder that men and women were unable to hear each other's thoughts; Michael's vessel was screaming his loud enough that they probably would've been heard loud and clear by every member of the Heavenly Host if not for the Enochian sigil carved into his ribs. Gently, the angel of true vision grounded the hunter's feet to the floor and used a current of air to lift his head, wiping away the film of desperation covering hazel green eyes to reveal the label of PATIENT FILE STORAGE stamped on the door directly to his left.

He was inside in less than an instant (after she unlocked it for him, of course) and Ramiel tightened the cloaking spell around both Dean and herself, watching as the hunter stood stock still for a second, unsure of where to start when confronted with the endless rows of file storage containers standing in front of him, trying to quell the imminent mini panic attack and his thoughts sounded out as if he were hollering at the top of his lungs. _Shit, shit, shit; there're a lot of crazy people here. Okay, focus man. Cas…C, C, C- he's not gonna be in here under that name. It's not like he's going around saying "I'm an angel of the Lord" anymore. Wait…maybe he is. Well, __**fuck**__._

The elder Winchester turned sharply, heading for the "D" section, because maybe they men in the white coats had Cas here under "John Doe" or something and _goddamn it, _there were a lot of those too. His fingers moved clumsily as if dragging through quicksand or some of that gluey, god-awful porridge they served for breakfast in some diners he'd been to before as he tried to grab a stack of random files; one of them tumbled gracelessly to the floor and Dean swore quietly, gritting his teeth as he bent over to gather the scattered pages.

_Stupid file, stupid butterfingers, stupid Leonard Dobson_…oh, Christ on a cracker.

He knew the man in that picture; as cliché and girly as it sounded, Dean would recognize that sapphire gaze anywhere and next thing he knew, he was hitting his knees and grabbing the loose papers, bringing them so close to his face it was as if he was trying to let the information seep in through his pores, eyes flicking back and forth desperately. Soaking up words like _undifferentiated schizophrenic_ and _bipolar with violent tendencies_, drinking in the lopsided, scrawled handwriting that declared Castiel to have _fantastical delusions of grandeur_, _religious mania_, and _parental abandonment, _the cold sinking feeling in the pit of his gut dousing out any previous fire of righteous anger.

Sure, Dean had never been to medical school or learned the fancy terms for any mental illnesses, but he'd seen the commercials for Zoloft and Prozac enough times and he'd watched Jack Nicholson in _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_ (which he did _not_ cry at the end of, thank you very much) to know that all of this added up to one hell of a clusterfuck. And when he flipped the page to see Meg's new face smiling smugly up at him beside the words _Attending Physician's Assistant_, his stomach bottomed out and the elder Winchester sagged, leaning back limply against the filing cabinet.

Of course, of _course_ it had to be that bitch. Even now, with eyelids slammed shut, he could see the little harpy lurking in the corners of his mind, leaning over him (_over Cas_?) with that catty smirk as his muscles tightened in spasms, as his back arched and his eyes flew open to stare unseeingly at the faded, peeling green paint on the walls and the heaps of twisted scrap metal and junk, the upended wheelchair whose wheel appeared to be spinning in the flashes of light from the currents of electricity-

"_The place actually has six stories; the lowermost level was used back in the fifties as mainly an experimental area where the quacks conducted lobotomies and electroconvulsive shock therapy…the CDC shut down the basement level of the psychiatric ward…it's not used for anything now besides storage…"_

Sam's rambling about the psych ward's history and background information slammed back into his brain like a derailed train flying off the tracks; usually his brother took the place of the yammering teacher in one of those Charlie Brown cartoons that used to show on Sunday mornings but now was one of those times Dean was thankful he'd actually listened. Pushing himself up off the floor, he jammed the file folder back into its cabinet and burst out of the room, gazing wildly around the empty hallway for the stairs (which just so happened to be directly to his left, how convenient) and started all but sprinting down the descending flights, heart thumping against his ribs and pounding in his ears so loudly that he didn't hear the sound of rapidly beating wings following closely in his wake.

Ramiel wished to follow the hunter; she wished it with every particle of her grace, every fiber of her being – and yet the layers upon layers of Enochian warding magic covering the lowermost level of the hospital prevented the angel's entrance and thus all she could do was stand back as Dean skidded to a stop in front of the last barrier and broke easily through the caution tape, reaching out hesitantly to try the door handle.

_Go, Dean Winchester. Go to my brother. _The door swung open easily and Ramiel amplified the sound which was as clear to her senses as rolling thunder, bringing the shrill racket of a demon's cackling laughter to the elder Winchester's ears and Dean tore off down the hallway, heeding the angel's unheard entreaty and command.

* * *

"_You __**are**__ with me still, aren't you brother?" The voice was soft almost soothing, but thrumming with undercurrents of destructive power. "If your loyalty still lies with me, you will do as I say and leave the girl to her fun." _

The slumped figure sat slouched in the leather chair, features slack and more gloomy than anything else as the he stared into the darkness of the room. The sun's rays from outside tried vainly to seep in underneath the floor length shades that remained closed, even at this hour of the day and the entire penthouse would have seemed deserted if not for the slight slosh of liquid against glass as a nearly-empty vodka bottle tilted back.

There was a slight 'ding' and a sliver of light cast a slight glow into the pitch-black of the apartment's interior as the elevator doors opened and Malthus stepped out nervously. He had only ever been up here once before but he could tell that the shadowed surroundings were still in impeccable condition, as opposed to last time, right after the news of a particular angel's death at the hand of the archangels, when the elevator doors had opened to what looked like Ground Zero and the Lord of lust sitting calmly at the bar, throwing back a shot glass of what apparently was the last of the alcohol. And there was a _lot_ of it; Malthus knew well enough, because he had been saddled with the job of restocking it all.

Now though, he moved cautiously around the furniture that was all still in its correct placing and alignment (Belial was particularly finicky about the order of things, almost obsessively so and thus the burdens of his perfectionism fell to the lesser demon) and Malthus made it over to the chair facing the corner furthest away from the elevator without incident. As soon as he saw his master though, his fingers, which were clenched tightly around the package he'd been sent for trembled about as much as his voice. "Sir?"

Belial, Hell's Second Prince, the Lord of lust and Master of extravagance and all things decadent, looked like hell – and not in a good way.

Bottles of all shapes and sizes sat by the chair and within arm's reach, set up neatly in a straight line by Malthus's feet and lay in a haphazard pile on the other side, drained dry of their contents. A pair of socked feet led upwards to wrinkled dress pants and an untucked, halfway-unbuttoned silken shirt, all still soaked through with blood. Belial himself held the neck of a vodka bottle in his right hand and his left hand, which was being used to hold up his heavy head, extended outwards toward the other, all the while still staring rather glumly at the wall. "Leave."

Quickly, Malthus placed the packet of Dunhill cigarettes into the upturned waiting palm and did as he was told, departing as quickly as possible. On the way back down, he nervously stared at the display of buttons and wondered if the Lord of lust had finally lost it for good.

"_Castiel will be yours soon enough. Trust me. You have my word." _

Belial scoffed, placing the paper-wrapped cylindrical death stick delicately between his lips and snapped once, lighting the cigarette with the flame that ignited from his finger. _Your word means less than nothing, Lucifer._ The Prince of Darkness was an arrogant prick, and the demon girl Meg was nothing but a tool (he in fact remembered her when she started out; she'd never really been that spectacular of a student anyway). The very thought of that slut putting her dirty paws over _his_ pure, innocent, unblemished Cas made Belial seethe in anger; he took a furious inhale of tar mixed with nicotine and in doing so shaved five years off of Thomas Hartley's life. How _dare_ Lucifer reserve the right to rent the angel out at will?

His gaze traveled over to the firearm lying on the floor amidst the bottles, stretching out slightly to nudge the revolver slightly. _Your loyalty for our little brother_, Lucifer had once promised, many millennia ago, and Belial eyed the Colt, thinking back over the seemingly countless years that had passed since he'd discovered what he wanted – but he'd counted every single damn one of them since the first time he had Castiel in his grasp and took with neither shame, hindrance, nor resistance.

_Castiel tore through the atmosphere, wings flat against his back as he plunged out of Heaven and down to the realm of Creation, shooting across the surface of the Earth and following the faint and weakened light of Ramiel's soul. All of Heaven had heard the angel of joy's tortured cry of all-consuming pain, and Castiel had waited impatiently for Heaven's foremost warriors to take flight, but for whatever reason, neither archangel nor seraphim had emerged from counsel and, in an impulsive and frantic gamble between his sister's life and the disapproval of his superiors, the lesser angel stole away, praying the speed he'd been lauded for would not fail. _

_It had been Ramiel who first welcomed him into existence after leaving the hands of God, it had been Ramiel who graciously taught him how to fly, who plunged her sword into the throat of one of their fallen brothers who'd tried ripping out Castiel's grace in the Great Battle for Heaven; he knew the angel of joy's soul apart from all others of the Host and had memorized the dimensions of Ramiel's beautiful grace which he could now feel fading, and fast. _

_Abruptly, he pulled up short; the wind biting at his face was nothing more than an annoyance as Castiel dove from an amazing height to land on the ground, immediately dropping to a half-crouch beside his sister's prone frame and the blackened, scorched skeletal frames that had once been wings. "AKELE!"_

"_Hello, Castiel." _

_The angel whirled around instantly, his own wings unfurling fully to shield his injured sister. Yet once his gaze fell upon the newcomer, Castiel's grace undulated in recognition of the terrible magnificence of the creature who stood before him, of the swirling flames and sulfur built upon layers of raw power and a face as beautiful as any of the Host – but it was the angry, grotesque stumps attached to the other's back that truly revealed his identity. "Belial."_

_His little brother had changed, that much was certain, Belial observed thoughtfully. Castiel's wings were no longer grey or muted, but a beautiful and splendid white; his grace shone through with fierce strength and at the current moment, a righteous fury. There was no doubt that the lesser angel had been studying under his superiors and with an inward scowl of disgust, the demon could tell that Gabriel had been instructing Castiel a good bit as well. However, his soul – oh, his __**soul**__ – it was as pure as ever, gleaming out with more allure than his bewitching wings and Belial stepped forward with purpose for as opposed to what seemed like eons ago in Heaven, he now knew what he wanted from Castiel. _

_Castiel reacted instinctively, drawing out his sword and fire laced his infuriated declaration. "You will not touch her, fallen one."_

_Oh, that was truly adorable. Belial felt a smirk uplift the corner of his mouth and he pitched his voice in a low, soothing tone. "Would you allow me to touch you instead, my brother?" the demon inquired, drawing closer to the angel. "To hurt you?" _

_The answer was immediate and firm, although with the slightest bit of hesitantance. "Yes," Castiel said with resolve. It was evident he didn't know the full extent of Belial's meaning or intent, but the young angel knew that if it meant saving his sister, he would acquiesce and bear the consequences. So he bravely stepped away from his sister's form, steeling himself for the pain as the other approached – _

_And Belial grabbed his prey, one hand closing around the slender column of Castiel's throat and the other pressing hard against the back of the head, trapping the angel as the demon kissed his little brother fiercely, brutally and with savage ferocity; he savored the electric sweetness and the intoxication of purity, and Belial swore he could taste Heaven itself.

* * *

_

_Castiel's grace flared in unparalleled shock. _

_The angel started to struggle in vain against the one who had once been one of the strongest and most powerful of his brethren; his wings beat frantically as he began to feel the demon's darkness bleeding into his grace, threatening to corrupt his soul. Twisting tendrils of fire encased his being and fingers stained by the foulness of sin grabbed at his wings, scorching the delicate feathers and Castiel tried to protest, mind reeling and Creation's light was dulling, the heartbeat of the Earth and the Song of the Host dimming the longer he remained trapped in Belial's hold-_

Red fingernails clicked against the dial as the demon girl switched off the machine and admired her handiwork. The angel's frame twitched uncontrollably, aftershocks of receiving dangerously high volts of constant electric surges still running through his battered, tremor-filled body. Castiel's head lolled to the side limply, eyes struggling to focus on his tormentors because at least that was the one semblance of control that he could still retain, although he could find neither the breath nor the presence of mind to form the words that would curse the creatures back to Hell.

_Camascheth…commah ds fifalz…_

She was apparently speaking for her lips were moving, but he was still dazed, and unable to comprehend the muffled sounds and syllables that floated out of her vessel's mouth and danced in the air around her head. Castiel gasped for breath as the pain disintegrated into a million tiny pinpricks attacking each and every nerve receptor; he knew the cool rush of exploding throughout his veins and provoking him to irrationality was a result of the mind-altering medicines the demons had forced into him – not that the realization could stop their effects, or anything. The demon girl's mouth opened wide in slow laughter, spewing forth a cacophony of yellow and then languidly, unraveling like a spool of thread, she bent down and sealed her lips to his.

Castiel immediately went into a full-body all out convulsion and Dean felt the sour acidity of bile rising up in the back of his throat at seeing a demon defiling a holy and pure being of the Lord. The elder Winchester might've still been a little shady on the existence of a God who would allow the world and all of humanity to go down the toilet as it was, but he'd spent his entire existence, all thirty friggin' years of it (_yeah, the other forty were ones he'd like very much to forget_) playing the hero and defining his life in the rigidity of black and white – right and wrong, good and evil, oil and water, monsters and the innocent.

After the past year and a half, Dean's dictionary had expanded to include yet another few sets of categories that would never cross paths. While angels and demons were now pretty much the same to him (the friggn' douchebags), Sammy was now forever distinct from the stranger that was Lucifer's vessel (not to mention hideously ugly all white suits), Castiel had gained the distinction of setting himself apart from the rest of the angels, and Cas most definitely did _not_ go with a demon. Least of all a skank like Meg.

"_How about this: you watch, while I fuck him! I'll even save you a front row seat, old sport." _

Belial's disgusting words had leached into his brain and were forever buried in the back of his mind, lewd sacrilege and blasphemy to the highest degree – but now, crouched here on the other side of a wall less than ten feet away and squinting through a hole in the wall like some peeping Tom, it was _Meg_ who was mounting the table and straddling an angel right in front of his eyes, dragging her claws down Castiel's heaving chest and pushing the white shirt up to reveal a frame so woefully thin that Dean could count each individual rib, could see the hollow of the terribly bruised abdomen that made kids in Africa look like gluttons. _Holy shit, Cas…what the hell did they do to you? _

"Aw, can't get it up?" Meg purred, hands snaking beneath the waistband and – _GODDAMN it!_ It was like a train wreck he couldn't tear his eyes from, the death of an empire – an angel's proverbial fall from grace and immersion into the murky depths of all things immoral and all too human. "Poor baby. And here I thought we were having so much fun."

Dean's nails bit into his palms as Meg leaned forward on top of her captive, propping her elbows up on Castiel's collar, and the hunter could tell one side had already been broken and was healing in _completely_ the wrong alignment. The angel's blue eyes were panicked and clouded and Dean's heart just about leapt into his throat when he focused on the inside crook of Castiel's arms and saw dozens of the telltale pinpricks of needle marks marring the pale flesh. _Oh, no. No, no, NO! _

Castiel was _high_. Honest to God, freakin' stoned out his right mind.

The angel was pumped full of who knew what cocktail of drugs, and from the looks of the needle scars that had yet to heal and Dean knew what this now meant, he now knew where he'd seen that glassy look before and _fucking hell_, he still had five more years! It wasn't fair; he still had five years to change things before Cas became the hollow-eyed, bitter ghost of a _man_ the hunter had seen in the future and he wanted to burst through the wall like the Incredible Hulk or something 'cause _boy_ was he more than angry, wanted to strangle the life out of Meg right then and there because _it wasn't fair._ He would've saved Cas, he would've prevented all of that, Dean was sure of it…

"I've heard from Belial, you know," the demon drawled, walking her fingers up along Castiel's ribs like steps. "He just wants you to know that he's coming to pay his favorite little bitch a visit." She glanced up slyly, meeting suddenly terrified blue eyes with pure black. "Says he's got some special treatments he's just _dying_ to try on you."

Lunkhead demon number one suddenly made an appearance, wheeling in a tray of something and Meg hopped lightly off the table, nonchalantly waving her hand in the air. "But well, since he's not here yet and Daddy's given me the keys, how 'bout we have some fun?"

_She wouldn't…she couldn't._ No way could she…Lucifer didn't… Meg was nothing but a grunt worker, there was no_ way in Hell_… But as his eyes took in the images that flashed by like still shots snapped from some sort of macabre Saw spinoff-

The white shirt getting ripped off of Castiel's skinny frame like wrapping paper on Christmas morning.

Lunkhead demon unbuckling the restraints and flipping Cas over, pinning the angel easily to the table.

Meg licking her lips like she was about to cut into a big, juicy steak as she selected one shining scalpel from the tray of tools and ran its blunt edge down the slope of the angel's back.

Two huge wings slowly shimmering iridescently into view like an image on a plasma TV screen, folded in against Cas's back, beautiful and breathtaking and _whole_, bearing no signs of former abuse-

-He freakin' _knew_.

_An eternity had passed before the demon released him and Castiel fell backwards to the Earth, hard. His soul whirled in a mass of wild confusion, distress, and untamable fear. He'd indeed learned and trained hard in the art of battle and how to strike down the fallen, but this type of assault was far different from anything the lesser angel had ever been instructed in; it was consuming and destructive without doing so much as drawing a blade, infinitely more wounding and although Castiel knew his form bore no injury, there was something in those sparse, few moments that had forever changed about the lesser angel. _

_Belial looked down upon his cowering little brother, at __**his**__ Castiel – grace fluttering at the edges, undisguised terror painting his soul a dark red like the crimson of blood the demon craved – and that was exactly what gave him pause. No, this wasn't what Belial wanted, at least not now. It was true that Belial wanted to possess Castiel fully, to gain complete and sole ownership over the angel's soul…but first, he wanted to take him in every sense of the word, to utilize the carnal pleasures of the flesh he'd learned, adapted as his own, and would set upon perfecting for the expanse of an eternity as the Lord of lust, until he could make his dear Castiel a part of that masterpiece, broken pieces of his soul, ragged wings, ravished flesh and all. _

_The demon reached out again and laughed, a deep rumble from his core when the angel flinched and tried to shied away; he caught Castiel with ease and cupped the sides of his face, dipping his head to taste of the finest elixir ever created, the most tempting of all sins for which Belial had ripped out his grace without a second thought, pressing lips to his brother's gently, almost chastely. "There," he smiled upon pulling back, "that's better, isn't it?" Castiel's eyes were even wider now, confusion magnified tenfold and fear mounting at a steady pace. Belial laughed, caressing the other's cheek. "I'll come back for you later," he promised, "but first, a parting gift." _

_The fingers that dug deep into his wings burned as they plucked out an entire handful of feathers and Castiel's back arched; he screamed aloud to the heavens above-_

-and the angel thrashed wildly, muscles going into full out spasms as he tried to buck away (not that the table below or the demon pinning him down from above gave him anyplace to go) as Meg ran the scalpel in a jagged line across the wing stepping lightly from the base of the appendage all the way to the tip. She was actually walking on the wing itself, dragging the instrument behind her like a kid pulling along a piece of chalk, humming as she went. Blood welled up from the trench being dug through the feathers and nerves and tendons to match the other carvings that had already been dug, crimson stickiness instead of colored lines used to outline squares for hopscotch.

"_Eleos, Abba, racham… ABBA!" _

It was obvious the demons couldn't see the wings, probably just another one of Lucifer's safety measures to ensure that his hellspawn didn't get their eyes burned out of their skulls – but Meg was nothing if not creative. She'd stuck a trocar down in either wing through the longest flight feathers, driving them into the floor and plucking out individual feathers one by one with extracting forceps or tweezers and then wrenching out handfuls with nothing but her fingers until the floor looked like someone had plucked and slaughtered a couple hundred pure white swans with feathers longer than a grown man's forearm, then using retractors to pry the slight wounds until they were huge lacerations from which dripped steady streams of crimson.

Her favorite tool though, still had to be the scalpel and as she casually slashed and hacked away because it was all just a big game to her, Castiel writhed and cried out incoherently in a Babel of despair and bled away onto the floor and Meg whistled jauntily as she worked at carving up an angel of the Lord like a damn Virginia ham.

"_I want you to see it when I ravage the one who defied both Heaven and Hell for your worthless soul…"_

Dean knew this scene. He knew it all too well, had seen it emblazoned on the back of his eyelids because it was what he'd been doing for ten years straight, slicing and ripping random souls to shreds without the slightest hint of mercy. But the most shameful part of it was the knowledge of what would happen if Meg cut just a _bit _deeper, of how paralysis would set in and how at just the right angle, the victim would be screeching for death – because he'd done this before. _No matter the context, no matter the slab of meat, they're all the same…Fuck no, goddamn it, no, NO- _He tasted copper and realized he'd bitten through his lower lip and at the next howl of pain, Dean bit down hard on his own fist to refrain from screaming out his own cracking resolve.

"_Pater!" _Castiel shrieked, no thoughts of dignity or pride, only the enveloping destruction that was wrapping his human flesh in the throes of total agony, with no hope of relief. "_'Abawun_, _rahmatullani_!" All the sensations he would have felt in having his wings destroyed by Zachariah and holy fire was nothing compared to the arrows and darts of anguish that raked at his back; the operatic chorus of every single nerve on flame and screaming, screaming out as loudly as he was, his throat burned with thirst and he jerked and fought unseeingly, blinded by the white hot flash of the pain, pain, _pain. _

Meg bounced lightly off Castiel's wing and onto his back, relishing in the wild, primitive scream the action produced. The angel was all out sobbing, muscles spasming uncontrollably as the demon straddled the small of his back, leaning down and across the length of the smooth skin, bending her head down right next to his ear. "That's it," she breathed huskily. "Now how about you scream my name now, pretty boy?"

With that, she sat back and reached forward with both hands, feeling about until her hands grasped both wings securely at their bases, and _**pulled**_. The sickening sound of tearing flesh already weakened by previous abuse sliced through Dean's eardrums and he couldn't take it anymore; the coffee and bite of whatever breakfast remaining in his stomach hit the floor and he clapped his hands over his ears but the vibrations traveling through the air still seeped through, the noise of an overripe watermelon smashing on bricks as Meg threw her entire weight behind it and pulled for all she was fucking worth.

It was all he could feel, it was all that was real and he didn't know if he was an angel of the Lord or a man out of his mind, he didn't know if there was an individual named Dean Winchester who needed to be protected, didn't know if his name was Castiel or Leonard or if he had no name at all- but at this point, it didn't matter. None of that mattered; _nothing_ mattered except the merciless blades digging into what which was a part of him – wings, back, skin, who _cared_ – he hollered out in languages he couldn't remember ever learning to a Father he'd never seen before and all that quickly, his mind was cracked and he was _gone_.

The room exploded in light.

_Oh SHIT! _Dean immediately hit the floor, pressing against the dirty grime coating the concrete that probably hadn't seen a drop of water for at least fifty years – and it was a good thing too, because the next thing he knew, there was a hole about ten feet in width being punched through wall directly next to his head and through the haze of dirt, dust, and rubble, the hunter could see the bloodied hamburger meat-like version of Castiel's wing, torn to tatters from top to bottom; from the next room he heard Meg's wild scream and rose to his knees to see her ducking and covering her head as surgical tools flew this way and that, obviously having been thrown off the angel's back…

…the angel who was on his hands and knees in the middle of the room, entire frame shaking with raw energy and power too great for his mortal, corporeal being. His nearly destroyed wings phased in and out of sight, flickering once or twice weakly like a light bulb on its last wire; Castiel's head lifted and his face was wet with blood, his mouth opened in a dying croak for someone who would never answer. "_ENAY-DLUGAM-RIT-TELOCH-SAISCH-"_

"…_until those pretty blue eyes can't see straight, until he loses his voice begging for mercy."

* * *

_

_Gabriel's wings beat furiously against the winds and practically rearranged the air currents of the Earth in his haste to get to his brother, streaking on far ahead of his two brothers following behind, scattering the Host in his wake who parted readily for the messenger of the Lord._

_He had been in counsel with the Michael and Raphael concerning Ramiel's capture; the latter two wished to capture Belial in order to execute their former brother, for he was the most dangerous and powerful of all the fallen, after Lucifer. The time they tarried truly was not long for the angel of joy was indeed a highly regarded member of the Host. Gabriel could feel Castiel's burning desire to assist Ramiel; he had always been particularly close to the angel of joy in a way that the archangel did not begrudge – but his attention had been diverted for a mere moment and returned to find the lesser angel gone. _

_Then came the second cry to break through the boundaries of Heaven that day and Gabriel tore through the firmament, fear for Castiel curdling his soul, hurtling down to the terrestrial globe upon which his brother was trapped somewhere, in pain. _

He slipped past the door that had somehow been left unlocked (Meg and her lackey had probably been too busy licking their wounds to pay attention to protocol) and crept into the room, invisible fingers tightening their already vise-like grip around his lungs and as soon as he saw the angel, Dean's façade of a calm and steadfast resolve withered; he took to a knee beside the bed and felt something akin to the time Sam had collapsed into his arms, bleeding out thanks to a knife in the back. _Cas…_

The angel lay flat on his back, strapped down to the bed with restraints so tight that they were practically forcing him _into_ the bed beneath – and crushing his crippled wings into both his back and the steel springs of the bed frame digging through the mattress's thin foam. His eyelids were slammed shut but his chest rose and fell unsteadily and far too fast; he was clearly conscious, but lost and adrift in a world of suffering.

_Dust and rubble billowed out in all directions like an atomic bomb far before its time as Gabriel touched down to the dirt. His silver eyes did land upon Ramiel lying in the dirt and soot of her own wings, her soul so weak that it was barely alight – but he left her to the other two archangels. Michael's emerald gaze was keen and sharp; the Lord's most formidable warrior did not even touch the Earth as he scooped up the angel of joy in his arms and spirited their sister back within the gates of Heaven as fast as possible, followed closely by Raphael, whose expertise in healing would be needed direly. But Gabriel's primary focus was upon a smaller figure curled in a heap on the ground, none so grievously injured as Ramiel, but whose soul was now evidently tarnished with the understanding of true evil. _

_Castiel shuddered, trying to gather his bearings, but at the slight wind that ruffled the feathers on his wing that were still in disarray, the lesser angel bolted upright, sensing another presence. An arm, pulsing with power and strength wrapped around him from behind and the angel instantly buckled – the demon had made good on his promise and had come back to capture and possess his soul – but he was a warrior of Heaven and he would not give into Belial's perversions and twisted lechery so easily and he fought uselessly but with all his might. _

The hand that landed upon his shoulder sent fireworks of blinding, noiseless white sparking up across his vision and Castiel jerked involuntarily; the touch fell away instantly. Through the hallucinations and the pain, through the delusions and memories that melded together, he thought he heard a single voice calling out through it all, a whisper of comfort and solace to which he reached out with both hands and stretched out his ragged wings to cling to with all that he was.

"Cas…Cas…_Castiel." _

"_Castiel." The voice thrummed through his senses and through the darkness of uncertainty and hopelessness cluttering his soul. "Castiel." It was familiar and quiet, tender and soothing, ever-patient and yet full of sorrow and regret for a reason he couldn't quite comprehend, breaking through the panic. "Castiel, little one. Castiel."_

_Gabriel._

_He turned slowly, hardly daring to hope – but yes, it was the messenger archangel – and yet Castiel stepped away. Gabriel would not dare to call him brother now, not after how his soul had been defiled with the touch of the unclean; he did not deserve the other's love, not anymore. And even more than the sight of his sister on the verge of death, even more than Belial's assault, the thought of Gabriel forsaking him had anguish twisting his soul. _

_But the notion slipped away the next moment as Gabriel moved forward swiftly, having read his soul easily, wrapping his arms and wings tightly around Castiel, just…holding him, simply an elder brother holding his little brother close as Castiel clung to him tightly, soul finally unfolding from its tightly clenched knot of fear and strangely human emotions that ran strong and frighteningly so. "Castiel," the archangel murmured again. "Little brother." _

"Cas," Dean whispered, amulet swinging loosely from his fist and as he placed it in the angel's spastically twitching hand, the fingers closed around both the necklace and the hunter's hand; something that sounded suspiciously like _Gabriel_ slipped from Castiel's throat like an exhale. _Brother._

_A/N: Well, I…um. That's it; I'm really all out of words. Please drop a review! _

_Translations ('cause there are a whole bunch)_

_Enochian - Heeoa od akele, aldi a-ai-om (Sons and daughters of light, gather amongst us)_

_ Cnoquol baloth (oh you servants of righeteousness)_

_ Amma tliob (cursed creature)_

_ Camascheth commah ds fifalz (all these words have "unknown meanings")_

_ Enay-dlugam-rit-teloch-saisch (Lord-give-mercy-death-brothers-) _

_Greek- Eleos (mercy)_

_Hebrew- Abba, racham (Father, mercy)_

_Latin- Pater (Father)_

_Arabic- 'Abawun, rahmatullani (Father, pity)_


	8. Traitor

_A/N: First, I'd like to thank all of you for your reviews; you guys' genuine interest, questions, and suggestions really make me feel appreciated (especially when real life is less than delightful, as it has been lately). Second, I apologize for the lateness – classes for spring term just started. Enjoy the chapter! _

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Kripke but these versions of Gabriel, Belial, and Ramiel belong to me_

In studying the beasts of the Earth and the fish of the sea, the fowl of the air and the vegetation of the land, it was always interesting to note how power structures formed, how one specific individual or entity established dominance over the others of its kind, and how such power and authority was maintained. The branching fibrous limbs of underground roots battled against the worm and other tubers; the minnow got eaten by the small fish that in turn got eaten by the dolphin but _c'est la vi_, such was the natural order of the living and it didn't take some fancy French idiom to figure out.

If the topic of discussion so happened to turn toward animals, things tended to get a bit more complicated. Typically, common knowledge supplied the basic, rudimentary facts of larger males dominating the female species of their kind and both dominating the juveniles, or at least until age started affecting capability. However, upon closer examination, those in the field of sociobiology would point out the variations in hierarchal systems in regards to despotic or linear orders, taking into account all the subtleties of evolution, patterns in food and mating opportunities, and the ever-puzzling presence of altruism in these seemingly mindless and reasonless creatures of the field.

But with humans? Oh mankind, with their egotistical arrogance in lording over all the other species placed upon God's green Earth and their need to be different from the rest; their self-absorbed _me, me, me!_ complex that demanded to be remarkable, set apart, and oh so special – much like that one particular person who always needed to be at the center of attention at all times, lest he or she spontaneously combust (although everyone else probably would've much rather preferred _that_ to the incessant yammering). No wonder the Lord's favored children couldn't be satisfied with simply submitting to the one among them who grunted the loudest and successfully smashed his club at the heads of his challengers. Oh no, they had to get all fancy schmancy, first with their cuneiform and pictographs, which quickly evolved into Merriman-Webster dictionaries (over a couple thousand years, obviously) and their wonderfully intricate and endlessly frustrating intellectual phenomenon of speech and rhetoric.

Not to say that whoever got the last laugh or spoke the most eloquently always won; there wasn't much talk could do when faced with the sharpened edge of a steel blade or the nice, shiny barrel of a gun – ask Julius Caesar or Gandhi. But as ridiculous and cliché as it may seem, one half of Shakespeare's disastrous star-crossed lovers was quite correct in the timeless musing of _what's in a name_? As discovered over the centuries by the Jewish people who would never speak the forbidden name of YAHWEH aloud, by the ancient Egyptians who believed that knowledge of a spirit's identity gave one complete power over that deity, and by Rumpelstiltskin and that poor stupid miller's daughter – there was power in a name, the power to identify and relate, to demean and honor, the power to strip away all that someone ever was or would ever be, and the power to restore to life a past long forgotten and half-dead.

For example: the name David.

It was a grand epithet with gallant connotations and references, Hebrew in origin and embodied one of the most famous and extraordinary personalities in all of history; the musician who became soldier, husband, king, psalmist and beloved of the Lord, a man whom God described as seeking out after His own heart. The greatest ruler Israel had ever seen, David slew thousands of his enemies and composed more than half of the psalms in the Jewish tradition; it was from his lineage that Christ the Messiah descended, and the Qu'ran depicted him as being an iconic, holy warrior. And without question, if the Creator of every single creature that drew breath singled you out in such a way, surely you were something special, a marvel to behold.

He chuckled grimly, tipping the bottle back to let the last of the now-warm amber liquid slide down the back of his throat, barely grimacing when it hit his empty stomach. Bloodshot grey eyes squinted through the darkness at the diploma displayed upon the wall, at the copperplate script that dictated _David Alexander Owens_ as a graduate of Harvard University, then skirted over a similar framed piece of paper from Oxford University and the man snorted mirthlessly, lightly tossing the empty beer bottle from hand to hand. _"Beloved, mankind's warrior, and noble birth", huh? What a shitty joke. _

The single grade, light blue moiré silk neckband and the connected plate of thinly crafted metal lay innocently on the floor several feet away and he glared at the offending item as if it was the cause of his parents' inability to see into the future, to see what a failure their son turned out to be; an idiotic, fucked up _mess_ of a – no, David decided, he was less than a man and if the recently deceased Mr. and Mrs. Owens had been able to predict that, they would've definitely decided against conceiving and raising such a brainless waste of space, a soulless monster, a godforsaken _murderer-_

-_there was sand everywhere; in his boots no matter how tightly he laced them up, in his eyes no matter how many times he tried to blink the rough granules away; it was under his skin like a parasite, eating away his very sanity and all those years of education paid in full by scholarships, corroding his mind and good sense. But out here there was no such thing as good sense; there was only survival and the M-16 rifle he held in his hands, salvation in the form of lightweight steel, aluminum, and the bullets it spat out like fire and lightening because it was either you or them, and he sure as hell wasn't going to go down without a fight. _

_He was here for honor and for country, for the sake of those who had already fallen and simply because it was just the right thing to do. And so he fired upon command, spraying into the ramshackle building without discretion or consideration. Taking orders from the higher authority was all that was required, even for a higher-leveled officer like him; superiors were superiors after all and this time, the order had been to clean up and wipe out the insurgents hiding away in the structure that was at the present moment being reduced to little more than a pile of rubble and mortar, to head in with full force and then to recover the weapons stocked within. _

_There were no weapons. There were no insurgents. _

_**No**__, he wanted to scream as he dropped to his knees, rifle falling from his slack hands as he gazed in horror as the bodies of the unarmed, defenseless women and children inside the apartment complex, riddled with bullet holes and leaking red away into the dust and the sand. __**NO!!!**_

_His frantic gaze turned behind him but the rest of his company had abruptly disappeared, and there was nothing here but the young girl who couldn't have been more than seventeen, clinging to her month old child in her final moments, brown eyes staring straight into him and stripping past the interceptor body armor, past the bulletproof vest and into his soul. She opened her mouth and blood bubbled out past her lips; the tears cut tracks through the grime on his face as he knelt beside her, hands outstretched to take the sobbing child she was trying to hand to him, a victim relinquishing her greatest treasure to her slaughterer. _

_But the child was no longer there; it was a strip of blue ribbon and horror formed a cold knot in his chest as the girl began to speak: "David Alexander Owens, to whom I am proud to award the Medal of Honor-"_

David woke with a scream lodged in his throat. _Oh God…oh shit…oh fucking hell…_ He hunched forward, face in his hands and shoulders shaking with near-hysterical sobs, blasphemy and prayer running together as one and on repeat through his mind. _Oh God, please…please… _

_Son of Adam. Child of the Most High, do not be afraid. David Alexander Owens, heed my voice. _

When the Voice hit his eardrums then (because what reverberated through the air could only be described with a capital 'v'), he jumped and fell out of the chair, gracelessly crashing to the floor, hard, and he raised his head, lifting a tearstained face. He listened. And before giving an answer of any sort, he asked but one question: "Who are you?"

The reply was world-weary, ringing with a great force that any other time would have registered as awe-inspiring and magnificent, but now filled with loss and remorse, with exhaustion and sorrow. David knew that tone, he'd spoken with that voice and although he never professed to be particularly empathetic, he knew raw pain and grief when he heard it, knew the familiar notes of self-loathing and regret. Here he was being offered a second chance by this creature of flaming ice and frosty flame, a stab at redemption and atonement for the sins of his past– but he knew he wasn't the only one who sought absolution.

_My name is Gabriel._

And so he said yes.

* * *

_Six months later_

"C'mon, man. Pick up. Pick up!"

The human brain was a mysterious infrastructure, connected and functional through a million tiny networks of spiderwebbed, interlocking neurons; so very much like the wires holding together the inner workings of a machine – dendrites meeting axon terminal buttons and twisting together positive-positive and negative-negative stripped wires, neurotransmitters leaping across the chasm of the synaptic cleft, vesicle by vesicle; information downloaded itself through sparking circuits, bit by bit to flip the switch that brought the CPU whirring to life, that signified the exact moment when the prodigy cast an eye at the quandary and just simply _knew_ the solution.

"_Goddamn _it, Dean!"

The mind as a computer analogy was doubtless a long debated theory full of controversy and passionate, vehement backers on either side of the argument, but it was true that some parts of it proved incontrovertible. Although it didn't work in digital senses like the step-by-step logistics of an inanimate creature of wires and microchips, the mind was perfectly capable of consciously organizing itself, could file data into schemas and utilize these tendencies to piece together fragments of a whole, to compartmentalize, and to produce moments of pure genius or stunning brilliance in creativity.

_Maybe he's stuck in traffic. _

Sam had never claimed to be a genius, but while he knew the truths of the impossible and what men of science and great intellect claimed to be nonexistent, still, the younger Winchester more often than not went with reason and sided with good sense. He always carefully separated interfering emotions from cases, packing childish hopes and wishes away from the reality of his life, trading in irrationality for calm and almost mechanical practicality (except for the whole listening to Ruby thing. That had been a major systems failure and crash of both common sense and good judgement).

His pacing footsteps sounded out loudly in the stillness of the room. Since the whole fiasco with shooting a man dead right in front of a frightened little girl and leaving said frightened little girl with the people up at the receptionist's desk, there'd been an awful lot of just that, silence. No singing coming from next door, none of Dean's tense outbursts or griping complaints since his brother had left close to _eleven freakin' hours _ago, no roar of a familiar engine pulling back into the parking lot; only the maelstrom of wild ideas and absurd notions ripping up a path of haphazard destruction through his mind.

_Maybe we hit the wrong psych ward? No, the demon was wearing that uniform and I doubt that demons are hanging out in mental asylums just for kicks and giggles._ His fingers gripped the cell phone again, thumb hovering over the button numbered 1. _Maybe they'd moved Cas and Dean's gone after them on the trail himself? But he would've called._ Sam Winchester's mind was, at the moment, a tempest cyclone of groundless concerns tearing through the carefully separated, post-it marked compartments of his thought processes and scattering everything about because he was just about at the end of his freakin' rope.

_He'll be back. Soon._ He took a seat by the window, folding his hands atop the table and tried to take a deep breath. _Dean always comes back. He's not like…not like Dad._ The thought was a knife to the gut and Sam's brow furrowed; he tapped his foot impatiently against the floor. It wasn't like this was the first time he'd been left alone in a motel room before; there had been plenty of times when Dean decided to show some random girl a good time when Dad had been away – but he always returned. Whenever Sam woke up in the morning from where he'd fallen asleep over a textbook, he'd always see his elder brother rummaging around for something to eat, grumbling about Sam being such a girl and needing beauty sleep. So why was it so different this time around?

Probably because right now, things had changed and the problem was now fifty, five hundred, five thousand times worse. The equation was now minus one John Winchester, plus Lucifer and Michael and the friggin' Apocalypse, with angels and demons multiplying out of thin air. Oh wait, that's right – minus God and Cas, too. So what did that all equal out to be? A shitload of a mess so screwed up that it made the lives of the dysfunctional Winchester family look like the Cleavers, a vicious match of hide and seek that would certainly be played in all fun and games to the bitter, bitter end, no matter who got hurt.

_What if it was a trap by the angels all along, capturing Castiel and then using him to lure Dean in?_ His gut twisted in terror at the thought, because truly, that was not at all unlike what those heartless dicks would actually do. His feet apparently had a mind of their own because next thing Sam knew, he was pacing again, trying to let his steps catch up to his frantic brain. _Don't be stupid. The angels have no idea where we are and they have no idea where Cas is, either. And that's because Lucifer has him. __**Not**__ helping. _Now he was actually biting at his nails and if Dean was here, he would've undoubtedly been- _Oh, SHIT. What if the son of a bitch has Dean, too?_

And screw the man who'd encouraged people in such situations to just tie a knot at the end of their ropes and hang on, FDR grew up privileged and never saw a "day of infamy" like each one during the complete and final destruction of the world, where if he woke up each day to the sunrise instead of a blood-soaked sky, Sam counted it as a victory. The inspirational quote pasted on the covers of journals and slapped on the surfaces of magnets sold at Hallmark never said anything about angels and demons, never mentioned anything about a moronic older brother who thought it was perfectly okay to go off for a day straight into the heart of the jungle's darkness without calling or anything, leaving Sam here to pace a tread pattern into the floor as his brain spouted off all the horrific reasons _why_ numbered one through a thousand and beyond.

Yeah, the younger Winchester had seen Dean die that many times before (_stupid Mystery Spot)._ And yes, he'd seen his brother _stay_ dead before too. So envisioning Dean getting tackled by a crazy patient and having to go to the hospital or Dean getting distracted by the Impala's tape deck getting jammed and letting the car careen off the edge of an unfinished section of the interstate _or_ stopping for a bite to eat and choking to death on a piece of pie was certainly not the product of an overactive imagination, excuse _you_.

_This is ridiculous_. Sam willed his feet still and dropped into a chair, staring dolefully at a dark ugly patch on the carpeted floor where someone had once dropped their espresso and clearly, the maids had stopped trying to scrub out the remnants a long time ago. _Just…stay calm. You're bored, that's all. _His foot tapped, his left eye twitched; his fingers drummed on the table, itching to just do something, anything, to still his racing thoughts. What exactly did he used to do whenever Dean just upped and disappeared all those years ago?

Flashing back to his pubescent years wasn't a pleasant experience; it never really was (even those who returned to their high school reunions sporting lines on their faces instead of acne and having packed on more than a couple pounds shuddered at the prospect of returning to the so-called "best years" of their lives), and Sam grimaced at the memories of one too many nights spent alone in an otherwise empty room, vehemently promising that when he grew up, things weren't going to be this way anymore. He would leave the "family business" as soon as he could, getting away from a father who never seemed to care and a brother who blindly followed everything he was told; he had a mind of his _own_, he used to tell himself as he tried to ignore the deep-seated ache of loneliness in his chest, instead filling the gap with schoolwork and research on how much Stanford cost again, and how high one needed to score on the LSATs–

_Some things never change,_ the younger Winchester smirked mirthlessly, fingers having finally found a path in reaching for the volume entitled _Enochian: The Language of the Messengers of God – according to Dr. John Dee_, although he'd already memorized and tried a lot of the numerous invocations included within – the ones that were comprehensible, anyway. There was no accusation or loathing in the deliberation, Sam decided as he absent-mindedly flipped through the yellowed, brittle pages, only a certain degree of irony. For better or worse, even though they had agreed to starting over, many of the inner workings of the two Winchester boys working together as a team remained the same, and some parts of that were perfectly fine. Dean would always pick the motels and the music (and scissors, for that matter), Sam knew he would always delve more into the research than his brother (sometimes he really hated his work ethic), Dean would be content in clogging his arteries with greasy diner food while the younger Winchester would attempt to balance out a bit of his diet with fruits and vegetables, and all of that was _okay_.

Dean was a good man (Sam didn't care what anyone else said whether they be demon, angel, or flying cow) and Sam loved his older brother but at times, the elder Winchester could really be a dick. He wouldn't take orders from anyone except their father (and given that John Winchester was dead, that pretty much meant then that Dean didn't give a shit about any figure of authority), he was occasionally idiotic to the point of making Sam want to tear his hair out in frustration, unbelievably tactless upon occasion and every so often, just plain _mean_.

Like the present moment, which was definitely not okay in Sam's book. Dean was inconsiderate and selfish to leave him hanging like this and not knowing heads nor tails of the situation, Dean was being a reckless ass by not even calling or sending an update through a text, Dean was…

Dean was in the parking lot, sitting on the hood of the Impala with his back turned toward their room and eyes fixed up toward the sky.

_Stupid-_ Sam bit his cheek hard, rising stiffly to his feet as the concern and anxiety rushing through his brain slimmed down into a thin streak of muted anger. _Case in point_, he groused mentally as he reached for his jacket, for who knew how long Dean had been there, sitting in the chilly twilight air and staring at the blend of reddish oranges gradually fading into hues of magenta and indigo. _What the hell is he doing?_ He wondered angrily, sticking one arm in its appropriate sleeve, gaze still trained on his brother.

The elder Winchester slowly alighted the Impala and threw his arms out to the side as soon as the soles of his feet touched the ground, tossing his head back and hollering something full-throated up at the sky before reaching for something still resting on the hood of the car; Sam saw a glint of metal and-

_SHIT!_

"DEAN!!" Sam was sure he'd never run so fast in his life, muscles all cramping and spazzing out all at once as his long legs ate the distance from the interior of the room to where Dean stood pointing the muzzle of the beautiful silver Desert Eagle at his temple, but still even that wasn't fast enough. _"__**NO!**__"_

The bullet exited its chamber at 1200 miles per second and the 'crack' of the mini sonic boom echoed in the parking lot – or maybe that was just the sound of Sam's heart splitting in two.

* * *

Tiny wisps of grass swayed slightly in the wind, gentle movement starting in waves from the top of the mountain and all the way down its slope in a manner that made it seem as if it would only be appropriate if Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata or some other elegant, lilting waltzing tune was playing in the background. The air at the foothills of the Swiss Alps was crisp and cold and the last breath of fall; the scenic view was beautiful, a picture off the covers of the boxes of those five hundred jigsaw puzzles, the ones with pieces smaller than a grown man's thumb that only enthusiasts or people with too much time on their hands and infinite patience sat down to put together.

There was an addition to the backdrop of the mountains though, snow-capped even at this time of the year: a shadowed figure of a girl kneeling in the midst of the curve of the meadow. The knees of her white stockings and shirt were smudged over with dirt, indicating the vast amount of time that must've passed since she first assumed the position that typically indicated a level of submission or reverence.

Or mind-numbing, petrified fear.

"I'm sorry," came the slow, halting whisper. The words dropped like sharply bitten off pieces of glass, cutting the inside of her mouth and slipping out like streams of crimson to match the dried rust-colored blood already caking her ears and cheeks. Clearly, this was an individual who was unfamiliar with the concept of apologizing or the expression of any form of regret; after all, it wasn't like she had ever had to answer to anyone before – and yet these had been the only two words the girl had spoken since arriving upon this location more than several hours earlier.

Finally, the figure before whom she knelt and paid homage to stirred, standing slowly with a languid stretching motion. "Please," Meg said very softly when the other turned his back upon her, but a hand lifted, wordlessly commanding a break or perhaps a discontinuation of the one-sided conversation and bringing with it such a wave of power that the demon flinched and fell silent.

The man then reached outwards, whorls and swirls of his fingers coming to rest against a bud, stroking the unopened flower gently, as if coaxing it into bloom. In answer, the lilac petals unfolded one by one to form a cup-shaped blossom tapering down into a narrow tube; its grass-like petals wrapped around the man's hand, drawn inexplicably to his touch. "So you've failed."

It was but a quiet murmur, but Meg's head snapped upwards as if she'd been slapped in the face. "I did EVERYTHING you taught me, exactly _how_ you taught me!" Slowly, very slowly the other turned, a graceful one hundred eighty degree rotation and the girl shrank backwards, head bowing once again, cowed. "…Father."

Lucifer crooked a finger under the demon's chin and looked into her face, at the dark empty sockets still oozing blood, at the extensive bruising that indicated the rupture of countless blood vessels beneath the surface of the skin and a corner of his lips twitched in what might have been a smirk. "I see." Without any roughness and in a way that could be considered kind, the Morning Star swiped a finger through the streaks of red interestedly, as if contemplating the mysteries of the pulmonary system and the fragile composition of humans. "Apparently young Castiel still managed to get the better of you, my child."

This brother of his was certainly a wonder to be hold, the tenacious little spirit._ A most interesting new development,_ Lucifer mused, thinking upon the whispers he'd been hearing from the others of his kin who were too distracted to bother with ensuring that their voices remained inaudible to the Morning Star. Truly, it took a great amount of skill to hide from the Host – and yet Castiel did so most admirably; yes, Lucifer was confident the other would do _very_ well under his command. _If only there were more like you, my brother._

From the very moment the Son of Perdition reached through time and the veil of the Shadow to draw together the remnants of Castiel's soul from the black chasm of oblivion, the first flare of awareness had cried out for life and practically _fought_ its way back out of the well of dark stillness, reaching out for _Gabriel_ and _Dean_ and _Father_. He had felt everlasting hope bursting forth out of the realm of Death, faith rising from the ashes – and while other members of the Host might have seen Castiel as nothing but a defiant nuisance, the strength of the lesser angel's will was amazing indeed, able to kindle the memory of the long forgotten vestiges of deadened feeling in Lucifer's blazing consciousness.

And now, the determinedly flaming orb of the angel's dampened grace had proved itself fierce enough to strike outwards through and past the blanket of emptiness of that which made all humans so depraved –the forced separation of sin – and merely as an _involuntary_ reaction, to boot. Lucifer was, to say the least, most pleased. "Well, he seems to be more resilient than most," the Devil murmured, cradling the girl's face in his hands and wiping the pads of both thumbs over the hollow sockets, rubbing blood back into the empty holes. _Almost like… what was it that the woman read to her son? Ah yes, 'the little engine that could'. _The thought of young Castiel's soul chanting "I think I can, I think I can" brought a wry smile to Lucifer's lips. _Of course, Job initially resolved to remain faithful, as well. _

Meg whimpered slightly, squirming in the Devil's hold. As much as she hated to admit it, the last encounter with the angel had her scared and slightly apprehensive at the prospect of potentially going back for more. The party girl had just gotten busted by the cops, the moth had danced too close to the flame and thanks to the damn angel, now she had no fucking _eyes_.

"We'll just have to fix that, then," Lucifer said as if he'd heard and he pulled his hands away. Meg gasped up worshipfully at her lord and master, eyes fully restored – pupil, cornea, iris, sclera, vitreous fluid and all, gaping in wide-mouthed wonder. Was it any wonder that she loved her father? _Girl, we are back in business. _

Lucifer smiled benevolently. "Open Castiel's eyes to the truth, hmm?"

It was a firm instruction, a command that left no room for argument and Meg was all too happy to comply with the underlying insinuation. _Look out, pretty boy angel. _She was going to make the feathered bastard eat every single one of the screams he'd made her utter, even if she had to reach down his throat and rip them out herself.

"_Many of them said, 'He is raving mad.' But others asked, 'Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?'"_

_

* * *

_

_Bit by infinitesimal bit, he could feel the darkness leaking away from his soul, stains fading away from where they lathered the multi-dimensional layers of his grace and Castiel's fingers twisted in the folds of his brother's robe; he unashamedly buried his face in Gabriel's chest as the archangel's skilled and healing touch smoothed over every burn, every askew feather, every dark blemish. Gabriel's only response was to envelope the both of them even tighter with his magnificent wings and to press one comforting hand against the back of his little brother's head, grace pulsing like a steady, reassuring beat against the lesser angel's soul. _

He sat facing the juncture of two walls, knees drawn up tightly to his chest, back stiffly rounded so that his unfettered, torn wings were able to fall limply behind his curled form; he rocked back and forth slowly, in time with the pounding of blood as it rushed through his ears, trying to ride out the strands of agony that twined around each appendage and twisted into a singular, tight coil and his arms were wrapped tightly around his thin torso, a terrible substitute for the warmth and comfort of a true embrace.

_The poison of Belial's touch seeped out like venom from a wound but as it did so, instead of relief and comfort, Castiel felt uncertainty and disquietude taking its place – and more than that, an overwhelming fear so terrible that it made his grace twist into an anxious gnarl. "Gabriel-"_

"_Peace, Castiel." Gabriel's words were quiet as he passed a hand over the largest slash in the other's wing, where the demon's fingers had burned away the feathers like a corrosive grappling hook. "Be not afraid. The servant of darkness shalt not have thee." The archangel's grace flared in righteous fury for but a moment, a swirl of pure holiness and dreadful, glorious might at the mere mention of the fallen one, but subsided the next. "I am here, young one."_

_But that was exactly what struck at the lesser angel's core; yes, his brother was here – but would Gabriel always be here? The circumstances surrounding Ramiel's assault and the subsequent events had been deemed by all of Heaven's superiors as a severe attack against the Host by Belial, Second Prince to the realm of unrighteousness and evil; therefore there was no reason for the archangel to feel disgust or vexation toward him. But Castiel wondered, if there would ever come the time when Gabriel would turn his back upon his useless little brother, spurn him and forsake him, if there existed the possibility of becoming stained with so much iniquity and wickedness that even the Herald archangel of the Lord could not wipe away. _

_Would the elder brother he so loved ever abandon him? _

A dry sob broke its way out of his mouth, past chapped lips and amidst the shuddering breaths he took, each more painful and laborious than the last. No one heard, for no one thought the man sitting in his room and facing the corner to be of any importance. And that was just as well, for who would care to spare him a thought now? Weak and hopeless, broken with no means of putting himself back together – he was just as useless to himself as he was to those he had been assigned to safeguard and protect. There was no one here. Not anymore.

He'd pressed his ear to the ground and could not find the heartbeat of the Earth; he could no longer hear the song of the Host or feel even his own grace. He could not remember the last time he had seen his charge, but he could remember when he last saw his brother – through the threads that wove together the shroud of everlasting death.

"_Forgive me," Castiel whispered, a mere flutter of his soul. "I have sinned. This- this was His judgment." He struggled to confess, for in truth, he knew not what he had done to deserve this. "I have…I have committed an offense against our Father and this was my punishment-"_

_Gabriel went still. "Thou believest that the ever-loving Almighty would deliver ye into the hands of sinful perversion and unholy lust for the sake of judgment?" Castiel could speak no more as he felt his brother's hands cupping the sides of his face and lifting his head; his gaze met a questioning silver one, filled with astonishment and concern. For a moment the lesser angel marveled at the difference between Belial's filthy grasp that sought to wreak havoc and destroy and Gabriel's kindness that was so great that he wanted to weep. "Thou has done naught requiring pardon."_

He rocked even harder, mind clear for the first time in weeks. _I cry out to you O God, but you do not answer. _A shudder passed through his body, strong and wild, and had this been a year ago, he would have found himself mystified by the simultaneous and conflicting strength and fragility of the human body. As an angel, there hadn't been the ability to crave the consoling touch of another in the raw, frenzy, _desperate_ way humans could; the deluge of emotions and even being able to distinguish pain had always been one of the factors that both baffled and fascinated him back then. As it turned out, actually _being _human was what made all the difference.

Now he knew the true punishment impressed upon Man; he knew the anguish of Jeremiah because of a Lord who asked for too much, the indecision of Gideon due to a waning faith, the doubts of Moses against the Sovereign whose yoke was too heavy and had naught but crumbling pillars of support. But most of all, he now knew the bitterness and rage of Job, a servant used and wounded, afflicted and tormented until he wished for Death itself.

"_I must have-"_

"_Castiel," the archangel broke in firmly, but not without compassion. "Our Father is just and merciful; He delivers judgment where it is due. And thou art blameless." _

"_But then why…I do not understand..." _

His fingers slowly unclenched from around the item he clutched in his fist, half afraid that if he loosened his grasp, it would disappear just like so many other false images dancing in and out of his line of vision and frame of consciousness. He didn't understand by what means Dean's amulet had found its way here, but as he tried to focus in upon the beating of his human heart, the whirling of mass confusion inside his mind, and the roaring ache of everything within his battered frame, he was certain he remembered a comforting hand soothing away the nightmares and chasing away the pain, and a voice rough with emotion but genuine and kind speaking reassurance-

"_Have faith," Gabriel whispered. "The Lord shalt always guide thee, Castiel. Nothing shalt ever distance ye from the grace of our Father..." His voice dropped low, going far gentler than Castiel had ever heard before. "Nor from my love, my little brother." _

_Castiel_, the voice had said, _Cas. _Cloudy blue eyes stared down at the gold amulet, before he ducked his head, pressing his forehead against his knees as he exhaled slowly, bringing the talisman close to his heart. And as he drifted into a dreamless sleep, Castiel hoped, wished, and prayed with all his might that when he awoke, he would once again have his faith, his charge's trust, his Father's favor, and his brother's love.

* * *

Momentum brought Sam slamming his brother into the ground with all the force of a charging bull, although the gunshot from moments prior made it clear that at this moment, he was lying sprawled over a mere corpse. _Why would Dean commit suicide, why here and why now, why would he waste everything Cas has done for him, __**why**__ Dean, why, why, WHY-_ The grief building in his chest and the storm within his mind created a muted effect, numbing the younger Winchester to everything around him, so much so that it took him a while to notice and register the fist pounding at his chest.

"SAM! You weigh more than a- dude, off, _off!_ Sammy, get the HELL off of me right the _fuck_ now or I swear I'll…"

_Sammy_. The hunter blinked. No one ever called him that except for his father (whom he knew to be dead) and – _"Dean?"_

He couldn't believe it. There was no way, he'd seen his brother's finger squeeze the trigger, there was just _no way at all_... But as Sam hastened to do what the wheezy voice had commanded and fell back on his ass to see Dean sitting up, a bit out of breath but otherwise perfectly fine and still with all the pieces of his skull intact, his gaze swung around to the gun lying on the pavement a couple of feet away, brain heedlessly barreling down the stretch of highway entitled '_what the HELL; there's got to be a logical explanation for this'_.There was still _smoke_ rising from the barrel. _How in God's name_-

"The act of intentional self-harm is a sin, Dean Winchester." Both hunters were on their feet and whirling around toward the speaker in less than an instant, the elder wearing a surly smirk of grim satisfaction and the younger staring in baffled speechlessness at the sight of the messenger archangel of the Lord who stood not more than ten feet away. "And had you succeeded in killing yourself," Gabriel intoned emotionlessly, crushing the bullet cartridge he'd obviously swiped between two fingers into dust, "it would not be difficult to bring you back."

Dean was standing toe to toe, nose to nose with the other in two seconds flat, and who cared about his previous edict on personal space; he was so close that he could smell the strangeness of ozone and what seemed to be static electricity and something far more powerful, so close he could see his own reflection in the grey eyes stupid feathered bastard's new vessel. "Knew that would get you to show your face, you son of a bitch."

Okay, so that was a bit of a lie because the elder Winchester really hadn't known that hollering _Come and get me, you fucking cowards_ at the top of his lungs at the sky would really achieve any results; the whole blowing his brains out thing had been kind of a spontaneous decision too. But none of that mattered right now because the archangel was here, and Dean wasn't going to let him go until he'd used up every single breath that he'd held inside until he thought he would explode as he knelt inside an angel's torture cell of a room, used up every gulp of air in screaming at the heartless dick who once identified himself as Castiel's older brother.

Because Dean had to believe that this cold, calculating soldier still cared enough for his little brother to help them, to help Cas. Because deep down, he knew that this was their only hope.

"Where the FUCK do you get off being so high and mighty, you son of a-"

His brain had finished cycling through its mass panic and near-nervous breakdown about Dean committing suicide, leaving Sam feeling honestly _dizzy_ – but that didn't mean that his mind wasn't still running high and at optimal speed. As Dean started ranting and raving like a raging lunatic, the younger Winchester's attention was focused elsewhere, and for good reason, too. His brother might have been running on nothing but emotions and what sounded like the scrape of raw hurt in his voice, but Sam found himself taking in Gabriel's rumpled, bedraggled vessel and the dark bags underneath the eyes that held weariness, despite being twin shards of diamond on the exterior, found himself noting the archangel's uncharacteristically slumped posture and the interesting fun fact of how Gabriel no longer sounded like a King James version of the Holy Bible-

"-listening to Cas begging for _you _and your worthless ass, you shitty excuse of a brother-" To Dean though, Gabriel's face was an impassive mask and he simply stood there without interruption and as he paused to take a breath, the elder Winchester noticed the lack of a response, of _any_ response and growled, literally _growled_. "Are you even listening?!"

"I have heard what you have to say."

Silence for a moment, and Sam winced when Dean flared up again, unrelenting and sharp as a knife, but with a definite note of crazed desperation that would've driven even the most heartless sociopath to pity. "_And?!"_

"And unless you have decided to acquiesce to Michael, I have no further business here."

For the second time in so short a time span, Sam thanked his lucky stars (he wasn't quite sure if he should be thanking the Big Man upstairs anymore; word was that God had already left the building) for his speed; he grabbed his brother just in time to prevent Dean from shattering his fist on an archangel's face and spoke – more like yelled as he tried to make himself heard over Dean's profanity, struggling to make his tone neutral – "Aren't you going to do _anything_ to help Cas?"

Gabriel was unflappable and imperturbable, reply polished and ready. "Castiel has chosen his own path, and it is one that has taken him away from the righteousness of Heaven." _A little __**too**__ ready. _"Any ill that befalls him is none of my concern."

He knew a mechanical answer when he heard one, knew the sound of a reply practiced over and over until it rolled off the tongue like a fact of life or convincing argument of which the speaker was trying to convince himself. There was no venom or real conviction behind the words and so Sam tried again, pressing a little harder because he _knew_ Gabriel was holding back. He didn't know how he knew the archangel was struggling to utter the cruel, unfeeling words that sounded more along the lines of something that would've been prattled off by someone like Zachariah. "But he's your _brother_."

"As was Lucifer, once."

At this, Sam's ire rose for reasons that remained somewhat unclear – maybe it was because he was getting sick and tired of the obvious bullshit or maybe it was because he himself had encountered the two beings in question himself, one who was the embodiment of pure evil and the other, the closest example of what an angel of the Lord was _supposed_ to be: merciful and forgiving (_The Lord forgives you for what you have done, Samuel Winchester…as do I)_. "You're wrong." It was too close to hearing his own brother's voice ringing out as Dean called him a monster and so now it was his turn to spit: "Cas is _nothing_ like Lucifer."

"Both traitors made their choice. Castiel has made the choice to follow Man." For the first time then, Gabriel's voice became a knot of velvet anger, seeping through with bitterness and anguish in one short, sharp hiss; his features creased in sorrow so fleeting that Sam nearly missed it. "_And see what has become of such a choice."_ One millisecond and a deep breath later, the Herald archangel drew himself up haughtily, surveying the Winchesters with cold contempt. "This trial is meant for Castiel alone and I will _not_ interfere."

_Oh, HELL no._ Dean swung blindly, literally choking on his anger because he did _not_ see Castiel reduced to little more than some freakin' broken doll for Meg to play Saw or Operation or Crazy Psycho Nurse with; he did _not_ just spend five hours on his knees at Cas's bedside, promising the angel that everything was going to be alright as he listened to the other literally sobbing and pleading an unknown entity for absent Father and complete _dickhead_ of a brother; he did _not _just almost blow his brains out for nothing-

"Gabriel!" he hollered, but to no avail.

The archangel was gone, his final statement hanging in the still air like the jangling of thirty pieces of silver.

_A/N: Well, I apologize for the slower pace of this chapter, but things will definitely pick up speed in the coming chapters. Gabriel's back though! Although I gather it's not exactly the reappearance everyone's been waiting for… don't kill me, please! But I'd be delighted with a review!_

_No translations this time around, but the verse used was from John 10: 20-22. _


	9. Trade

_A/N: Thank you all for your kind reviews! While reading through them I often come up with some of my best ideas, take note of loopholes that I would have otherwise missed, and enjoy getting to know you guys. Enjoy the chapter! _

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel, Belial, and Ramiel belong to me_

In the late 1960s, a terrible fire that spread quickly through the two-story sprawling campus ravaged the old grounds of the Prowers County Psychiatric Ward, killing more than twenty-three patients and fifteen staff members who were trapped by the devastating flames. Not only were the casualties a tragedy, but the property damages and the resulting financial losses were staggering also: nearly all of the buildings were destroyed to the point of being uninhabitable (save for the basement level of the mental hospital, where patients were often referred for treatment or if they were simply acting too rowdy). Following the fire's extinguishing and the mostly fruitless search for survivors, the authorities determined the source of the flames had been a single cigarette left unattended, and had been perpetuated by the buildings' flammable insulation and poor emergency systems, including sprinklers that did little more than leak a few pathetic streams of dirty water rerouted from the plumbing system.

After its reconstruction, the Prowers County Psychiatric Ward instated stringent regulations on smoking, cinderblock walls, and boasted the best sprinkler system in the entire state of Colorado.

The sprinklers continued to spill downwards, trailing down the little girl's skinny frame and soaking the white dress to her skin, plastering locks of brown hair to her neck and back like twisted snakes as Ramiel led the younger Winchester down the hallways of the mental hospital, eyes set straight ahead in concentration and purposeful intent. Her reach cut through the fall of water easily for she stretched out not with the all too easily defective means of human sight, but rather with tendrils of her grace that sought out her brother's soul.

Although Castiel's grace had been dampened by the dark power of the Morning Star, Ramiel could still sense the soul she had cradled close upon its creation, could still distinguish the delicate flare of the fragile spirit that, to the angel of joy, was unique as any human's fingerprint, distinctive as every single grain of sand, singular and beautiful even in its weakening condition. Even among multitudes of her Father's creations, Ramiel would recognize the young one's soul anywhere – and as of the current moment, she felt pain, confusion, and helplessness that was overwhelming in its terror.

Her bare feet moved swiftly, skimming fluidly over the surface of the floor – and, although it now held more than an inch of standing water, the little girl left no pitter patter of footprints, produced no splashes of water – almost as if she were skating effortlessly _over_ the surface of the water.

_She's not walking on the ground. Her feet aren't touching the floor. Oh God, there's an angel inside this little girl who's walking on water right in front of me. She's been an angel all along. How the hell did she find us? Where is she taking me? Is she here for Cas? Has Dean found Cas yet?_

Sam Winchester's thoughts, though not nearly as loud or offensive as his elder brother's, still held the same note of tension and anxiety, of uneasiness mixed with despair. He did not explode with his emotions in an outward sense, but instead kept them stored deep within – and as one who had always been more intuitive and openly empathetic than her brothers and sisters, Ramiel could sense how the young man burned with questions. His apprehension was like a silken scarf tightening around her senses and limiting her ability to…

Humans might have identified the odor as a chemical element called _sulfur_ and commonly expulsed from volcanoes, but to an angel, it was the stench of undisguised evil. Ramiel whirled around, a flash of white, pushing the hunter flat against the wall without even touching him and thrust a palm outwards toward the demon who had been lurking behind Sam's shoulder, previously unnoticed. The demon girl fell to the ground with a shriek.

Meg hissed sharply, flicking a menacing, poisonous glance upwards at the little bitch – but the being who approached was not a child. Not even close. This was an angel of the Lord bearing down upon a demon, a daughter of sanctified flame and righteousness standing above a creature of evil, an elder sister recognizing her little brother's tormentor –

"_Noco ol babalon!"_ Joy's little hand shot outwards and her wrist snapped sharply; the blow connected across the demon's face in a fierce slap that echoed down the corridor, following a scream and chased by a winding slither of smoke. The vessel went limp as the last of the black fumes funneled out and the little girl stooped slightly, twining fingers reddened by the force of the slap against a strip of dark leather, snatching an all-too-familiar golden trinket from the fallen demon's hand.

Straightening, Ramiel clenched a fist around the amulet and turned back to a wide-eyed Sam who was in the process of peeling himself away from the wall and gathering his bearings. His mind was quiet now, utterly and momentarily blank as he stared at her, mouth agape and in the stillness, the angel lifted an arm and pointed. "This way."

* * *

_Five days ago_

The toes of the shiny black oxfords swept up over the tops of the trees and then tumbled back down with a whoosh of air; they ascended yet again, up, up, up so high that it was almost as if their wearer could tiptoe on top of the clouds with the angels who surely rested up there with their shiny golden haloes, harps, and wings. Little fingers clenched tightly to the links of chains as brown eyes gazed up serenely, almost solemnly at the sun without squinting or blinking once.

She wasn't a beautiful girl, nor could she have even been called cute; in fact she possessed a strange countenance for a child, a faraway look that was out of place on a face so young. Unlike so many other youthful, elementary school-aged girls of this day and age, she did not wear clothes far too mature for her undeveloped frame; there was no short denim skirt or pink polo shirt with an eagle stitched over the breast. No, the clothes she wore were those one would expect a mother to dress her child in for Sunday morning services back in the day: a white and purple paisley pinafore with a full skirt, bib top, and shoulder ruffles, complimented nicely with a pair of cream woolen stockings and shoes that would have made any "trendy" teenybopper cry tears of embarrassment.

There was a rather large mud puddle beneath the swing in which the little girl sat and it was odd how she had managed to get into the seat without dirtying her clothes; they looked freshly laundered and even her shoes were without any specks of mud. An even more pressing question was how on earth she would manage to climb out of the swing, but that seemed to be of no importance to the little girl who simply continued to swing back and forth, up and down. Her legs pumped rhythmically in a practiced pattern known to all children, but no song of cheer or glee accompanied the up and down motion of the playground equipment.

Up and down, up and down. Forward and back, forward and back.

Slowly, a man stepped into the picture of childish innocence and silently approached the swing from behind, the toes of his brown field boots sinking into the edge of the mud puddle. As the swing descended and swooped backwards, a pair of large hands calloused by work and weather reached out, closing completely over the girl's and bringing the ride to an abrupt halt.

The brown head tilted back and Ramiel blinked once, slowly, eyeing the man as he walked around to the front of the swing, dirtying his shoes even further. She held out her arms and allowed him to lift her off the swing, feet dangling several feet above the mud puddle, fingers clutching tightly to the folds of his corduroy jacket. "You came."

"Yes," the other answered simply, setting his sister down on the firm ground.

The angel of joy nodded once and then walked over to a bench on the side of the road, English braid swinging where it hung in a single plait down her back. Turning around, she hopped up onto the rough wooden planks, reaching out with one small hand and patting the empty space beside her. After a moment's hesitation, her companion followed suit, settling almost gingerly onto the seat. Both of them sat in silence for a little while: an archangel and a seraph, brother and sister, the Lord's Herald and Heaven's joy and true vision, side by side in their Father's imperfect world that was already polluted by the fringes of evil and now on the verge of being overrun by their fallen kin.

_Thump. Thump. Thump. _Joy's shiny-shoed feet hung two inches above the dirt below and they swung back and forth at unmeasured pace. _Thump. Thump. Thump. _Ramiel's gaze wandered from the flock of geese flying overhead over to the jogger in her hideous orange and purple velour tracksuit moving steadily along the path before finally coming to rest on the vessel sitting beside her. Her ears caught the sound of the jingle of the ice cream truck from over a hill a little ways away and the laughter of children riding on the currents of the wind, the sound of a butterfly's heartbeat and the everlasting song of the Host of Heaven, the troubled and miserable exhaustion of the archangel's grace as it palpitated in a sharp, jerky staccato.

He sat hunched forward wearily, elbows on knees and head sunken down between his shoulders, hands crossing and uncrossing sporadically, fingers flexing as right thumb crossed over left, and then the reverse. Ramiel silently took in the sight of the boots now stained with mud, the rumpled collared shirt underneath the worn jacket, the jeans whose knees still bore grass stains, evidence of a recent altercation. The angel of joy had only ever seen her glorified brother in the brilliance of Heaven's light or in the heat of battle, shining forth in righteous judgment and magnificent might; never like this.

"Thou hast been keeping watch?"

Even the his voice was different, rough, as humans' usually became with exhaustion or emotion and Ramiel's soul fluttered with unease, sympathy, and distress. "Yes." She could feel the conflict within her brother and the waning of his normally rigid resolve; the silver of the archangel's eyes melded with the muted grey of his vessels as he turned to gaze at her, wordlessly prompting her to go on. "The Adversary tries our brother as he did the Lord's servant Job." Her voice was soft and she paused, letting the space fill up between them before the next words came as a whisper through the foliage in the Garden of Eden. "He calls for you."

Gabriel actually _flinched_, a sharp shudder wracking strong shoulders as if his vessel had been struck. He looked away mutely with a single shake of the head.

Ramiel's eyes prickled strangely at the utter defeat in the mere gesture and she reached over, placing a hand on her brother's arm, simultaneously reaching out to touch his soul lightly. "There is only so much I am able to do, and it is not enough," she said quietly, almost pleadingly. "Castiel needs his brother, Gabriel."

"Thou knowest I cannot answer." He still refused to look at her, refused to accept the consolation she tried to offer, keeping his soul locked up tightly behind barriers of impenetrable self-loathing and despair. "A pact made with the Morning Star cannot be broken."

* * *

Laughter rolled out of the extravagantly colored and brightly lit buildings lining the sides of the stretch of land bursting out of a dry and arid landscape deprived of water, a desert filled to bursting with electric lights, flashing signs, and the sinful pleasures of the flesh. Voices peppered the air, some high with excitement and others slurred with drink, harmonizing to the tinny musical notes of too many machines operating at the same time and the sounds of Earth's quickly diminishing natural resources being swallowed up by Man's voracious appetite for avarice and lust, sloth and gluttony.

Ah, Las Vegas. Bright lights, big city, and the Devil's own playground indeed.

Men and woman came here to score big and hit the jackpot, to get hitched at a small tacky chapel by an Elvis impersonator with a rough voice and too much hair gel, to have the time of their lives and forget that anything bad could have ever happened in their lives as they lost themselves in the jingle of coins and the sizzling aroma of the finest couture dining. Willingly, stupidly, like a herd of sheep heading toward the road just because the ram decided that the grass was greener on the other side, they drowned in the never-ending bottles of vodka and sophisticated martini glasses, the tumblers of whiskey on the rocks and bottles of cheap beer. Glassy-eyed and floating on top of cloud nine, their eyes lit up with the brilliance of the amazing firework displays on the other side of the fountains of the Bellagio and the showgirls with their ridiculous sequins and feathered boas, pockets emptying second by second, one-two-three.

And yet there were very few who ever ventured over to the other side, who chose to readily descend into the seedy underbelly of the city, where the skeletal figures sat slumped in alleyways, arms full of holes and veins pumped full of liquid death, where the shadows leapt with spurts of gunpowder and flashes of lightening, where hollow-eyed and broken-spirited girls sold bits and parts of their soul just to get by. If the topside of the Devil's playground was where the thrills of all the fun and games were located, it was here, away from the brilliance and grandeur of the lights and glitter that the rank of despair hung like an ever-thickening fog.

The swankily-dressed figure sauntered in the darkness as if he were a part of the dismal landscape, casually passing by a junkie lying in a pool of her own vomit, too dazed to move and thinking of the loving parents she ran away from; he stepped over the carcass of a dead rat bloated with God knew what or how many diseases among this filthy squalor, ignoring the outstretched hand of the elderly man whose son decided he'd had enough of his decrepit father and kicked him out as he slipped smoothly through the night, a silk handkerchief winding like a ribbon through the back alleyways and down roads that led to absolutely nowhere.

He approached a back door that seemed no different than the multitude of others just like it – rusted, dirtied with age and being a product of its surroundings, and creaky on its hinges as it swung open easily, never mind the deadbolt that had been affixed to the handle. Expensive Italian leather shoes moved noiselessly over the threadbare carpet stained with various biological fluids better left without description as the man moved down the dark hallway, paying no attention to the various noises emitting from the rooms on either side until he arrived at his intended destination, whose door, like before, opened before him.

The room's interior was dark, but clearly its occupants were too engaged in their own activities to notice the sliver of light that filtered in, or the shadowed figure of the man now standing at the foot of the bed, watching the cheap cotton sheets writhe and twist this way and that.

"Shit, _shit!_ …Jesus _fucking _Christ Almighty!"

"Well, that's just tasteless," the standing figure commented lightly, cool emerald eyes watching in amusement while the mattress groaned in protest as one lump underneath the sheets shrieked and the other cursed.

"What the-"

"I told you that watching was _extra_!"

An arm flung out to the bedside table and the room flooded with light, leaving two red-faced and breathless individuals staring up at the man observing them with all the nonchalance of one watching a slightly boring movie. "Isn't it, though? Calling out your _Father's_ name during sex?" He narrowed his eyes in sharp scrutiny before he tsk-tsked, shaking his head in disapproval. "And look here my dear, surely that's not the best faking you can do." The grin that came next was rakish, but far more distracted than it should have been, coming from the Lord of lust. "What say I give you a proper schooling later?"

While the man in bed sat in bewildered and shocked motionlessness, the girl let out a squawk of indignation and an indignant obscenity before untangling herself from the sheets and storming out of the room, tiny plaid skirt and necktie flouncing as she stalked away in six inch stilettos, an odd mix of Catholic schoolgirl and penniless desperation. Belial turned back toward the other and smiled without any warmth; a flash of the serpent's pearl white fangs before they buried deep in flesh. "Not quite a peak performance, I gather."

"_Fuck you_," was the reply.

He shrugged, but it was a jerky movement of stiff shoulders. "Not quite in the mood tonight, old sport." Even the words came out tighter than usual, clipped and with a tone of impatience most uncharacteristic of Hell's Second Prince. "Titivillus, is it?" The demon glowered at his superior but did not deny his identity. Belial coolly withdrew a packet of cigarettes from a pocket, placing one between his lips, silently wondering why so many of those who donned meat suits felt compelled to adopt the names of the skins they rode around in.

"What do you want?"

He inhaled a lungful of nicotine and tar, exhaled a perfect three hundred sixty-degree circle. "Don't play the fool, brother. Although it's very becoming of you, as I said, I'm _not_ in the mood for your idiocy." The coffin nail crumbled into ash and fell to pieces on the dingy carpet; Belial's eyes narrowed through the haze of smoke. "So, Scribe. Now is when you _will_ tell me where Lucifer is keeping the angel."

"Like hell," the demon smirked, surprisingly (and not to mention stupidly) brave for someone in his situation. "You may be the Deputy Ruler of the Abyss, but you have nothing on my lord and master." Lucifer's copyist sat back smugly, crossing his arms like a preteen girl smarmily informing her parents that she would date whoever she wanted to, so _there._ "My lips are sealed."

Belial's voice was a velvet knife, soft but indescribably sharp at the same time, the last whispered vengeance of a sociopath: "Well then I'll just have to pry them open, won't I?"

The door slammed shut, deadbolt lock sliding into place, and the room plunged into darkness.

* * *

_Too. Friggin'. Bright_, was Dean's first thought with actual words somehow dredged up out of the swirling mass of discombobulated syllables and phonemes in his mind. Why the hell did a motel bathroom have need for two separate lights anyway? It wasn't as if one needed an entire dashboard of sixty-four watt solar panels to take a dump or shower or shave. And what was the deal with short shrinking on the actual room itself (which was in desperate need of some new furnishings and a carpet that didn't smell like cat piss mixed with mildew and cigarette butts) and splurging on florescent tubes of blinding rays that were trying to burn his eyes out of his skull?

Of course, any other person who had that much of a beef with the lights could've simply walked over and flipped the switch; however, from his position on his knees and with his head almost inside the curve of the toilet bowl, Dean really couldn't have gotten up even if Lucifer himself came busting down the door.

_Oh…god._ The hunter groaned, fingers gripping the sides of the toilet, leaning his forehead on his arm as the hangover from hell continued to mercilessly pound its way relentlessly through his brain with a freakin' sledgehammer. Normally Dean didn't like spending half the night and the better half of the morning worshipping the Porcelain god (and sure, that had to be some sort of blasphemy, but at least this god was always here and available and not the type to just up and disappear in the midst of an emergency like the freakin' Apocalypse), but after almost blowing his brains out and facing down the biggest douchebag of an archangel – he was stressed out, okay?

There was shuffling on the other side of the door in response to his latest voicing of discomfort, and Dean knew that Sam was directly outside, waiting and most likely pulling the 'I'm worried about you but just so you know, you're a stupid ass' face, with his gigantic forehead pulled low by tightly knitted eyebrows and tightly puckered mouth, a certain expression that never failed to make the younger Winchester look either in pain or extremely constipated. His brother had actually tried to come in earlier, but Dean had driven him out with a growl that would've made a pitbull proud – hell, it might've even matched Castiel's pissed off growl when the angel's voice pitched lower than humanly possible-

-but then that wasn't the right thing to think of because suddenly, all Dean could hear a voice not so powerful or commanding screaming, pleading in a language older than time itself and choked with sobs that were all too human and just _wrong_; all he could see were the holes and terrible purple-blue-black smattering of bruises marring flesh in a macabre tattoo that seemed to say 'hello, and welcome to the fucking tragedy that is being one of us humans' and he really had to remind himself how to breathe in and out lest he choke on the bile rising up and hitting the back of his throat as he retched.

"Dean?" Sam's voice was muffled and definitely worried as it shot through the thin wooden panels of the door but Dean ignored his brother because he didn't deserve anyone's worry or sympathy. Going out and getting drunk off of his ass and landing himself into a bar brawl that his little brother had to drag him out of was stupid, stupid, _stupid_; stupid like this whole showdown between Heaven and Hell, like God (if He was even around anymore) must've been to have possibly thought that Dean could do anything about it, like Castiel was for having faith in him as a mere man, this pathetic mess of a man who'd led an angel down the road to doubt and so much pain and so much heartache, he who had driven a holy and pure son of God to the point where his own brothers were hunting him down and calling him _traitor_.

"_Both traitors made their choice. Castiel has made the choice to follow Man."_ Gabriel's words were a cruel, unwinding ribbon of acid burning their way through his corpus callosum, harsher than nails on a chalkboard or the worst screech of Celine Dion's high-pitched yowling. _"And see what has become of such a choice."_

But he'd already seen the consequences of Castiel's loyalty, seen the cold and unfeeling fearless leader he'd become at the end of where the road led down into the pits of darkness and terrible despair, where an angel had become a hollowed out shell of a man who filled up the empty spaces behind bitter, crazed smiles and weary, bloodshot eyes with pills and alcohol because there was nothing else.

"_Are you coming?"_

"…_Of course."_

As if the Castiel of that horrific future had no choice but to say yes because he'd turned his back on Heaven already and there was _nothing_ left for him but to be used as cannon fodder – a lamb to the slaughter, miserable and silent and helpless. Just like the Castiel of right here and right the fuck _now_ came whenever beckoned with the ring of the cell phone, who held the elder Winchester's amulet close to his heart, who would follow Dean everywhere if he simply said the word, who was slowly being tortured to the edges of insanity in the belly of a mental asylum.

The unsightly tile pattern of the bathroom floor starred before his eyes and Dean closed them against the glare of the light, but the image still remained, like the photographs of the Twin Towers crumbling in a flurry of debris, smoke, and flame – a grey, dirty, unwashed floor strewn across with bloodied, torn feathers. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, reaching into his pocket for the single, perfect piece of an angel of the Lord left…

And frowned. His fingers searched blindly, scrabbling-

Sam had the bottled water and saltines ready; he'd been to the small convenience store down the street after Dean woke up from his inebriated slumber and lurched for the bathroom, but that had been close to two hours ago and the younger Winchester was starting to get worried. It wasn't often that Dean drank himself under the table, but the man Sam had finally found at the bar, cursing at all the patrons like a sailor upon the high seas had been far past the point of being simply under the influence; he'd been friggin' shit-faced.

Being that full of beer or whiskey or whatever the hell he'd been loading up on hadn't stopped Dean's lips from flapping though, and as Sam had half-guided, half-lugged his brother back to their room, he'd been narrated about Dean's entire visitation: what he'd seen, what he'd heard, what he'd experienced – every single hideous detail. At the end of the tale, Sam had been seriously considering getting plastered himself. Or maybe driving straight over to Prowers County Psychiatric Ward and pumping Meg's ugly face full of rock salt.

Suddenly then Dean swore, loud and angry, and that really shouldn't have been so much of a surprise; Sam didn't envy the hangover his brother was experiencing at the moment – but it was the devastation he so clearly heard in the other's wrecked voice, the desolation bordering on the point of heartbrokenness that gave him reason to shove one broad shoulder against the door, barging into the small bathroom as the flimsy wood gave way. "Dean?"

The elder Winchester wasn't lying on the floor in a fetal position, and neither did he have his head stuck in the toilet or cracked open on the bathtub. No, Dean was sitting cross-legged on the floor, head sunken between his shoulders, face hidden in his hands, and before Sam could say anything, the other looked up. "It's gone, Sam." His face was a contortion of sorrow, a mask of sickness that had nothing to do with alcohol or its less than pleasant aftereffects-

"I lost it." Dean's voice cracked. "It's _gone_."

* * *

"_**Castiel**__,"_ The voice called out of the darkness, simultaneously kind and authoritative, glorious and amazing and the most beautiful chorus his ears had ever beheld. _"__**Awaken**_**.**"

He instantly jerked to wakefulness at the order, and although he had not yet seen the speaker, Castiel's heart leapt within his chest because he knew, he _knew_. He carefully uncurled himself from his crouched position in which he sought to hide away from the world, turning slowly as not to aggravate the poor condition of his wings – and instantly fell upon his face, prostrate before the Almighty Sovereign and Maker of Heaven and Earth. "_Father,_" the angel gasped, tiny voice drowned out and completely lost in the majestic presence of the Creator of the Universe.

God took the appearance of a flaming orb of fire and ice, whirling dust and cosmic energy condensed into a mutifoliate rose of raw might and dignified strength, beautiful in proportions inexpressible by the human tongue or any other form of articulation and powerful in a scope that certainly would've reduced even the greatest mountains to even less than dust with nothing but a wish. Uncontainable within a simple human form (for all have indeed sinned and fallen short of the glory of God), YAHWEH now stood before one of His messengers, gazing down upon the shaking form of the angel of Thursday.

He found his face wet with tears as he wept, heaving sobs wracking his weakened frame because finally, _finally_, after all this time, he had finally found the Lord. _Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you_. How could he have ever even considered losing faith? His heart beat fast within his chest and for the moment, he even forgot (or at least was able to ignore) the constant, sharp throbbing of his ruined wings and was simply, in that instant, an overjoyed child in the presence of his long-absent Father.

"_**Child, uplift thy gaze.**_"

Castiel's eyes widened in amazement, for who but only the most revered of the Host had ever seen the face of the Lord? It was a command though, and obediently, the angel raised his eyes from the floor to look his Father full in the face, and it was all Castiel could do to keep from dropping his gaze as soon as he did so. "Father," he choked out, voice rough now not with pain, but an overflowing waterfall of emotions that tumbled and rushed and jumbled together; pain and awe, gratefulness and questioning, reverence and astonishment all rolled into one. "My Lord, I have-"

"_**-disobeyed my Will and rebelled against thy brethren**_**,**" The voice of the Almighty sounded out, a raging tempest over a clashing sea. Castiel's jaw clicked shut and his eyes widened at the obvious disapproval and reproach, shocked into speechlessness. "_**Neither the blessing nor favor of my heart shall be thine, defiant one.**_" The eyes of God were sharper than any diamond the Earth could compress into existence, more vicious than the most savage beast of the field, hurtling past human skin and flesh to burrow deep into soul. "_**Thou hast disappointed me, Castiel.**_"

The angel could feel his heart clenching so tightly that it was a wonder the organ didn't simply implode; his soul shriveled in shame and the tears were now ones of humiliation. How was there a way to explain to the omniscient, omnipotent Adonai that he had simply been doing what he thought and felt was right, that he had only been following the commandment to love mankind? _El Elyon… Abba…_ He was now dirty and useless, an insubordinate son worthy of nothing from _Jehovah_-_Jireh_, Judge of all. Castiel thought that he would suffocate upon his own self-hatred and he brought a fist to his chest subconsciously, lungs constricting in uncontrollable spasms, heart palpitating wildly. And yet surely the cold touch of Death would be better than having the Father he loved so much staring down upon him with such disapproval-

Suddenly, he gazed down at the fist pressed against his chest in wonder, eyes widening and then narrowing; Castiel leapt to his feet in a whirl of movement, soul brimming over with rage. "Enough of this blasphemy, Deceiver!" he growled, fingers still clenched tightly around the golden amulet that lay cold and still in his palm. "You, Lucifer, are _not_ God!"

The tendrils of energy slipped and slid against each other, reforming and reshaping the other figure until the face of the Morning Star's human vessel slipped into view, eyebrows raised in interest and lips twitching in not a little amusement. "I'm sorry, that was inconsiderate of me," the Devil said smoothly and without a hint of remorse as he gazed into the infuriated sparking shards of sapphire that were his former brother's eyes. "I thought you would respond better to such an appearance."

In response to the other's silent glower, Lucifer smiled benignly and his figure changed yet again, growing several inches taller and filling out; bones shifting positions in their sockets, skin stretching out tighter over defined muscle and the eyes flickered from a chilling icy blue to a hazel green hue, mouth quirking upward at one corner into a crooked grin- "How about this one?" Dean's visage asked jovially, and Castiel's black glare became downright dangerous, still clutching his charge's amulet close, as if doing so could protect Dean from the Devil himself. Lucifer shrugged the elder Winchester's shoulders, unaffected by the other's heated glare. "Or this?"

There was a flash of brilliant light that nearly blinded Castiel, but he didn't so much as blink. He would not show weakness in front of the Son of Perdition, he would not bow to Lucifer's twisted mind games, no matter even if he now was no more powerful or immune to temptation than any other human being; he stood tall and firm as the whiteness rearranged itself into a new shape-

"How now, Castiel?" Gabriel's silver gaze was gentle and full of fondness, affection evident in the marvelous voice that announced the Lord's Word to the nations and yet also spoke kindness to the most favored one of his kin. The archangel spread his arms wide, warmheartedly. "I love thee, little brother."

It took all the resolve Castiel bore not to crumble to pieces into the embrace being offered, for he knew this was not the Herald archangel of Heaven, and yet his knees buckled as the moisture welled up in his eyes again. "Stop," he whispered thickly, no longer caring how pleading his tone was as a weight settled upon his heart at the sight of his elder brother, tight and painful and unbearable. "_Stop_."

Lucifer resolved back into the form of his vessel with a soft smile, knowing and inviting and deadly, like the spider leading the pitiful and unsuspecting fly up its winding stair and into its sticky clutches. "The righteous man held out for thirty years before he broke," he murmured, looking the mess of an fellow angel up and down, taking in all the tears and rips and cracks that had yet to be patched up and sewn closed. "I wonder, Castiel, how long God will allow you to suffer like this before you fall?"

Castiel's lips thinned into a tight line; he stared unwaveringly at the Adversary, at he who could have ended the lesser angel's existence as easily as stepping upon an insect. Castiel knew he was worth little to Lucifer, and yet the other insisted upon toying with him and tempting him, for some reason he had yet to discern. But he would not – he would _never_ assent.

_The righteous man held out for thirty years before he broke._

He thought of his charge, of Dean's strong and resilient shining soul, of how very wrong his brothers and sisters were to think of humans as weaklings without any sense of duty or mindful reason. In Heaven, these creatures of clay and the dust of the terrestrial ball had always fascinated Castiel, as had a great many others of his Father's creations. He'd learned of all the different materials of the planets and the entire universe, had held in his hands the strands of the atmosphere, had touched the hot molten core of the Earth, had brushed along the tiny petals of a yellow buttercup and flew in the eye of a tornado.

And out of all the substances made from the hands of God, it was the soul of humanity that proved itself the most resilient and deserving of wonder, for among the billions of mankind, Castiel had seen the elastic and the ductile, the brittle and the fragile – and yet the strength of Man was one with which the shepherd boy slew the giant Goliath, that instilled within Job the faith to stand firm, that led the Son to drink of the cup of poison and suffering. It was the same strength with which Sam Winchester dredged up the courage to face the world he broke, and the tenacity by which the young hunter continued to pray.

"_As surely as God lives," _he started softly,_ "who has made me taste bitterness of soul, as long as I have life within me, my lips will not speak wickedness and my tongue will utter no deceit."_ His voice grew stronger as he stared at his former brother, shoulders squaring and chin coming up defensively._ "I will never admit you are in the right; till I die, I will not deny my integrity. I will maintain my righteousness and never let go of it." _

"Reciting and learning from the words of Job, brother?" Lucifer chuckled. "And when will the Almighty ever speak to you? Have you ever _seen_ the face of God, Castiel?"

"I stand by my faith," Castiel said firmly.

"_Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord_," Lucifer quoted easily. "_For we walk by faith, and not by sight._" He looked Castiel up and down once more. "Hmm." Then, with a quick nod-

"Rise and _shine_, angel boy."

His eyes snapped open and Castiel found himself lying flat on his back again, staring up at the demon girl Meg who leaned over him, smiling a catty little smile – but it wasn't the discomfort of lying on his wounded wings that triggered a sense of alarm that quickly spilled over into overload, but the fact that he could not _move_.

"And how's our patient today, Leonard?" Meg taunted, pulling on a pair of latex gloves with a sharp _thwap_. She noticed the quick flicks of his gaze down at his unbound but motionless hands, back, up at the ceiling, and then around and around again with mounting panic, and laughed. "Shot you up with some atracurium and doxacurium this time, so don't even think about going all high and flighty on me."

It was just her this time, this demon girl with her lewd, suggestive quips and smart mouth, and Castiel would have glared had he the ability to move his facial muscles. He'd already gotten the better of her once, and the angel knew he could do it again. She turned her back on him, fiddling with something on a tray and he tried once again to move in any way possible, to twitch a finger, to lift an eyebrow or part his lips-

Nothing.

She was bending over him then, reaching one with one gloved finger and tapping lightly against the top of his left eye. Between her fingers she held a long thin tool, a blade with a needle-sharp point, and immediately, the fear grew to insurmountable proportions, wild and crazy and rushing like a torrent of _no please Father above don't_-

"You know what they used to call this procedure?" Meg asked nonchalantly, sinking down so that her lips were an inch away from the frozen, pouted perfection of the angel subdued into a state of paralysis. "Mercy killings of the psyche. Sacrificing virtue and the driving force of the soul for complete and proper behavioral control." Her breath blew over and mingled with his, an exhalation of death. "Sounds like a fair trade, now don't it?"

With that, she put the tip of the ice pick under the eyelid and against the top of the eye socket, driving the crude kitchen tool through a thin layer of bone and straight into the prefrontal lobe of the brain.

* * *

Dean screamed.

He dropped the water bottle and his back arched, muscles feeling as if he was confined in a straightjacket, jerking about and trying to flounder this way and that but simply _unable_ to, and as he fell off of the side of the bed, hitting the floor with a jarring crash, the only thing he could focus on the was the feeling of fire burning out the back of is sockets.

"DEAN!"

Sam's voice thundered all around his senses but he paid it no attention as he twitched; his mouth was a wide-open cavern from which poured a stream of hoarse croaks and nonsense words and syllables like _yolci rit_ _vmplif _and _ialprt_ and _bagle_ or something incoherent and desperate. He was vaguely aware of his brother's enormous hands grabbing at his and trying to stop him from ripping his eye out but oh _HELL_, now the other one was on fire too.

He remembered Hell, the fire and the pain and the gore, but he remembered Castiel even more, remembered how Hell was brimstone and lava and whips tipped with blazing tongues of darkness. But Castiel was cold fire, holy flame that would never extinguish in the beating of wings of pure white light that burned and burned and _burned_-

_His back crashed down against the metal table and his head jerked back and the cords in his neck tightened; he could feel blood seeping out of the corners of his eyes and across the planes of his face, trickling from his tear ducts. And as he lay there, gasping, panting for breath and trying to ride out the unspeakable scorch of exploding stars inside his skull, his eyes caught sight of the man standing at the door, pinprick pupils contracting and expanding, latching upon the carefully ironed and pressed with tapered seams and moving up to the starched white collared shirt and silken tie. Oh God please, Father-Abba-Pater-_

_Fear built upon by years of warnings and protection of an elder brother no longer present swelled into a riot of unbridled terror as a white handkerchief extended slowly toward his face, carefully wiping through the trails of blood and an unmistakable voice: "Well, hello there, my little soiled dove."

* * *

_

David was not an unintelligent man.

Certainly there were those who though of military men as only capable of handling weapons and taking or giving orders, but this mindless soldier with a gun had a Masters in military science and a PhD in psychology with a concentration in behavioral analysis, thank you very much, so let it not be said that Major David Owens was incapable of thinking for himself. He'd already learned the cost of following orders blindly the hard way, and it was a mistake he would not repeat again.

So naturally, when the first symphonious burst of an celestial being's voice rang out in his mind, he'd been willing to acquiesce, but on one condition: that whatever the Lord's messenger did, wherever he went, whenever the angel carried out a holy command from up above, David wanted to be there. Not tucked away in the back of his own mind like a trapped rat or forced into a state of unconsciousness while a freakin' archangel rode around in his skin and brought down God's wrath with his body, while presenting _his_ face to the world because there was no way David would allow himself to be used for another ill act ever again. Not a fucking snowball's chance in Hell.

Some might've called it masochism. David was sure even the Herald thought him foolish. But he called it penance.

And so Gabriel had agreed and allowed the human to be awake and aware, although pushed back on the sidelines and kept behind the red tape at all times, but nonetheless, David had indeed been _there_. He now knew the pain of being ripped apart by the claws of hellhounds, experienced the heat of a battle with not guns or grenades or guerilla warfare, but with holy might and dark power, between flashing wings and the twisting stretches of black smoke, between angels and demons. He saw it all, he heard it all, and more importantly, he _felt_ every single second of it.

Except for that _one time_.

_You're keeping something from me,_ David practically yelled, probably because inside his own mind, he couldn't really figure out the exact workings of acoustics and physics, and possibly because he was trying to get a honest to goodness archangel of the freakin' LORD to listen to him, a lowly mortal – and the archangel Gabriel, no less. The prophet Daniel's interpreter, appearance to the Virgin Mary, blowing his trumpet to signal the end of days – yeah, _that_ archangel Gabriel. _We had a deal!_

_**It is none of thy concern.**_

David sucked in a frustrated breath, although his own lungs, under Gabriel's command, made no such strain. _I want to know,_ he pressed insistently. _You gave me your word Gabriel, your WORD that I would-_

_**What happened without thy knowledge hast brought injury to no one.**_

_You're lying_, he accused immediately, because sure he was talking to a divine being, but he'd always been good at reading other people and he wasn't quite sure if it worked the same way for angels, but he was pretty damn sure he knew the familiar coils of guilt nestled deep within beneath the soldierly resolve, the staggering amount of guilt and the sorrow and the pain that wasn't his. _It has something to do with your little brother. Castiel. _

Gabriel stiffened; David felt his shoulders snapping straight in alignment with his spine. _**This conversation is over.**_

_Don't you dare block me out, you son of a bitch!_ Gabriel was skilled at keeping his holy self of fire and ice and chaos and lightening far removed from his human vessel, but David was nothing if not perceptive, and he'd been able to piece together a great deal in the six months of being used as little more than a suit (after all, it wasn't like there was anything else to do). One of the first things he'd learned besides being alerted to the fact that hey, the end of ages has arrived, was the fact that Heaven's Most Wanted List at the current moment had four names: Lucifer (for obvious reasons), Dean Winchester and his brother Sam (for the sake of them being vessels, as he was), and a certain lesser angel named Castiel (who'd been accused of turning traitor to Heaven and righteousness).

He was a single child, for the late Owenses had never had any other children, but David knew full well the familiarity of camaraderie with brothers in arms, knew the closeness of sharing a drink and chatting about girlfriends back home, knew the grief and rage of seeing a friend fall. But what Gabriel felt toward this particular brother of his, the anguish coursing through his soul when David had been literally spoon-feeding the archangel words with which to deny and refuse the hunter's furious accusations – it was far different from mere friendship or fraternity.

It was the unconditional love of an elder sibling for the little brother for whom he'd held as a child, for whom he scared away the bullies (or in this case, booted the demons back into their rightful places in the Pit below) and soothed away nightmares and all the horrors of the world with a gentle hand, whom he'd watched grow and learn with pride, whose current situation was practically _killing_ him.

And having a depressed, moping archangel of the Lord inside your head was even worse than having one's own depressing, moping thoughts. So he insisted. _Show me. Tell me._ Whatever it was, he just wanted it out.

_**No.**_

_You gave me your word, you lying bastard. _Gabriel was silent and slowly, David began to allow worry and fear to seep in. _What the fuck did you do?!_

The answer was slow, reluctant, and came in the form of flashing images flitting across the flatscreen of his brain, speeding up faster and faster until David found himself sucked into the scenes because it was clear Gabriel's guilt was fueling everything now; archangel or no, this was an explosion of emotion and shame and regret so great that it was making him nauseated-

"_You will allow me to test him without intervention." Lucifer's voice held a sharp click of satisfaction beneath the mock tone of understanding. "You will not speak to him or comfort him in any way; you will not draw near to him. If Castiel cries out for mercy you are to give him none; if he calls to you, you are not to answer."_

_Gabriel's voice was a roll of thunder; rumbling darkly with the far stretches of eternity and filled with rage. "I said thou shalt __**not**__ have him."_

_The Morning Star raised an eyebrow, amused at his brother's evident anger. "I will take him only if he comes to me, first. Castiel would indeed make a fine disciple."_

_With a most uncharacteristic growl, the archangel launched himself at his brother; the ground shook and split, oceans roared as both beings crashed into the side of the mountains, burrowing deep into the core of the Earth itself – but for all his passionate fury, it was clear that might of the Lord's Herald was not nearly enough to take down the Son of Perdition who bested him with ease._

"_It is __my__ debt, Lucifer! Why torment my brother?!" His vessel's spine snapped in three places, skull cracked into seven different pieces, and lungs rapidly filling with blood, Gabriel made for a terrible view. But his appearance was nothing compared to the words the Devil spoke next, soft and crueler than the fatal blow. _

"_It's because I know you, brother. I know of your compassion for Castiel, I know this would cut deeper than anything else- but do not think me cruel, Gabriel." Lucifer straightened, instantly healing the gaping chest wound the other archangel had managed to inflict that spanned from neck to navel. "You and I both know that had I the desire, I could take his soul back in an instant, but I won't." His devil may care smile indicated that, at the present moment, the Devil really didn't give a damn. "That will be Castiel's choice to make." _

He jumped out of _that_ rather quickly (which was just about as easy as getting out of a sandstorm with full gear and equipment, all one hundred and twenty pounds of it), because David was pretty damn sure he'd never wanted to see his own body contorted and twisted out of shape like that unless it was in a friggin' body _bag_. But holy fucking shit, he really hoped this little brother of Gabriel's was one tough soldier. He hoped Castiel was making the right choice.

_A/N: Eh…not so sure about the ending there, but I tried my best. I thought it would be interesting to introduce a different dynamic between an angel and his vessel with Gabriel. What do you guys think? A lot of you also encouraged me to change the summary to the story, but here's the thing- I'm absolutely terrible at summaries. Have any suggestions? Please drop a review! _

_The verses referenced in this chapter were, in order of appearance, Luke 11:9, Job 27:1-6, and II Corinthians 5:6-7. _

_Translations: __El Elyon: The Most High God (Hebrew)_

_Jehovah-Jireh: God our Provider (Hebrew)_

_Yolci rit: Bring mercy (Enochian)_

_Vmplif, ialprt: strength, flame (Enochian)_

_Bagle: Why? (Enochian)_


	10. Reason

_A/N: I apologize for the lateness of the chapter, but I spent the week getting acquainted with an annoying little nuisance who just wouldn't leave me alone: thank you, writer's block. This chapter is going to be a bit different, stylistically speaking, but as always, I hope you enjoy!_

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel, Belial, and Ramiel belong to me_

_Three days ago_

Smooth and well-worn with having fingers curled around its handle on one side and a long, thin length tapering off into nothingness on the other end, the ice pick was as an everyday household appliance, commonly used to pick and chip at the large blocks of ice used to keep food cool before the invention of refrigerators. So easy to handle that young children, housewives, and those who chose to get their hands dirty for the Mafia alike were able to wield the silent and simple but effective tool, it was no big surprise that the functions of the ice pick would be extrapolated in many ways. But then again, who knew that it would also fall into the hands of those who swore under oath to "do no harm" as an instrument of barbaric savagery and torture?

In relatively modern times, those who brought the techniques of psychosurgery to the forefront of the fields psychological and medical science weren't exactly introducing a novel ideal, merely expounding upon procedures carried out upon numberless unfortunate individuals from the times even before Hippocrates, those who traded the voices shrieking and endless pounding within the confines of their own skulls for the peace of mind promised. Or sometimes, it was the husband who sent in the wife who'd dared to grow tired of housework; a child who just simply would not adhere to the Church's handbook on how to be an obedient son or daughter well versed in the virtues of filial piety; the young man whose presence was suddenly as taboo as his sexual orientation.

Those poor, _poor_ unfortunate souls.

In the first half of the twentieth century, a pair of neurosurgeons resurrected the idea of prefrontal lobotomies, claiming wonderful and effective results upon cutting the connections to and from prefrontal cortex of the brain. One of them even received a Nobel Prize for his achievements. Pretty soon, the United States had developed its own spin on the procedure, switching out surgical instruments for an ice pick and crude hammer, electroshock for anesthesia, and purported or actual mental illness for slack faces and unresponsive passivity.

Immediately after the process of inserting the ice pick into the skull by brute force, the patient's face was indeed quite a ghastly sight, but the great learned men of psychology and medicine maintained that the procedure left no visible permanent scar, a claim so groundless and idiotic that it almost bordered on the edge of being funny – but there was nothing amusing about the terrible theft of that which made Man different from just another beast of the field, nor was the deprivation of one's mind, spirit, and soul comical in the slightest bit. And the part where the destruction thinly veiled as a surgical procedure actually denied an individual the ability to think rationally, to feel, to hope, and to dream?

_Hello, 911, what is your emergency? _

_Yes, I'd like to report a homicide. So and so has just had a lobotomy, and I believe I just murdered his soul._

_That_ sure as hell wasn't laughable in any way, shape, or form.

Sometimes the results were instantaneous; upon other times, the patients required some rest and recuperation before being presented to the world as the surgeon's latest conquest of the wild and untamed jungles of the dangerous human mind, Kurtz displaying his latest horror to Marlow and the civilization he left behind: a despondent shell of what once used to be a human being, weeping blood from torn tear ducts that streamed down cheeks blossoming purple and blue and black.

But no one noticed the garish bruising on the face of pale, silent Mr. Leonard Dobson as he sat upon the bed in the padded solitary confinement room, shoulders slouched and limp head bent so low that his chin nearly touched his chest, the white shirt hanging on his emaciated frame like a scarecrow's turning a rusted dark copper as blood seeped in two sluggish trails downwards from his eyes. And unless one of the nurses or orderlies secretly moonlighted as a red and blue tights wearing, caped superhero with x-ray vision, no one saw the fact that nearly half of his prefrontal cortex wasn't so much damaged as it resembled a hunk of ground beef that had been tossed to the dogs and then regurgitated. No one caught glimpse of the silent, spastically jerking man (because that damn ice pick had made short work of the motor neurons too) lying on the ground like a limp rag, no nurse on his or her round remembered to stop for the sake of offering nourishment or water – in fact, it was as if no one even saw him at all.

But that was perfectly alright. Because he couldn't see them either.

If he'd thought the mind altering substances before were bad, it was nothing compared to the overwhelming emptiness now. It wasn't painful or frightening or even bothersome in the least bit; it was simply…_nothing_. No light, no duty, no hope or need for faith because there was no Heaven or Hell or Apocalypse, nothing to fill up the vacancy that were his days now, a desolation devoid of tragedy because there was no reason to care. And his existence might have been truly hollow and stripped bare for not a thing if not for _them_, those – those _things_ that came, went and came back again, pressing insistently at the torn shreds of who he was.

Or maybe who he used to be? He wasn't quite sure who or what he was supposed to be or wanted to be these days. Not anymore, anyway.

But oh, they were so fantastical, so very different from the barren walls and caverns of his mind, bright and elusive flitting particles of something he couldn't put a name to. He tried; oh did he ever try, and occasionally, he would be able to weakly fumble around for the wispy tendrils of comprehensive thought billowing through his destroyed consciousness like tumbleweeds in a desert. Stretching forth arms that refused to move and reaching out with fingers that couldn't clutch for something he didn't know, he tried and reached and stretched with all his useless might – but to no avail and almost reluctantly (did he really know the meaning of such an emotion? After all, without any urge to act, there could be no unwillingness), he let it slip away again and faded into the darkness of oblivion, let go the voice that he would have once recognized as _beautiful_ calling out a single word over and over again:

"_Castiel."_

_He was comfortably ensconced in a bed of warmth, entirely enveloped in layers of all-consuming love and mercy, abundant grace that had scooped him out of eternity from amongst the stars and molded his soul out of nothing and gave him form, a purpose, a name. "__**CASTIEL**__," the many undulating voices of God declared, a thunderous tornado of chaotic announcement and yet at the same time a whisper of invitation and welcoming to one of the youngest of His children. Thus Castiel was not afraid, for the first moment of his existence was surrounded by Peace and defined by Love._

_As the symphony faded then, the angel heard for the first time the choir of his kin, the glorious Song of worship and praise uttered by the voices of his brothers and sisters in unceasing service to their Father and his soul yearned to do the same, to forever cry "holy, holy, holy" for the honor of his Creator. Suddenly, the blazing inferno of the hands of the Lord disappeared and Castiel felt a different presence reaching out to his soul and instinctively grasped for the newcomer, settling easily into an embrace infinitely kind, full of affection, and safe. _

_The presence held him tightly and as it unfolded the complex intricacies of his being, Castiel slowly became more than an orb of raw, pulsing grace, more than a wave of power made aware of its own life. Although the Almighty created his soul, he was now being drawn open across the depths of this new arrival's own understanding, being given shape and a definable figure in a way so gentle and unspeakably joyous that his soul sang in exultation as the light of Heaven shone upon what now was the crown of his head and through his new, fragile wings. _

_As comprehension dawned and the words of a language that escaped the limitations of time or existence became knowledge, Castiel lifted his head amongst the cascading stars and trickling ribbons of Heaven's glory, opening his eyes to settle upon the face of his sister, radiant in her beauty and all the more luminous in her tenderness. "Hello, Castiel," she whispered, but her voice was like a song itself to the lesser angel, and he stared in wondrous amazement at the angel of joy who held him close. "I am Ramiel, the daughter of joy."_

_She had a name then, a name so lovely that of course it belonged to this exquisite soul, and Castiel tried himself: "Ramiel?"_

_Ramiel's soul blossomed in a shower of pleasure, a glow of joyous explosion and as she stroked gentle fingers over the mussed feathers of his wings, Castiel's mind cleared and he found another descriptor for this creature of elegance and warmhearted affection. "Sister?" But young and unknowledgeable as he was, Castiel knew not by manner of experience or mental discernment, but by the flutter of intimacy within his grace that never would even another of his kin with the same label ever compare to this sister, and so amended his previous identification. "My sister," the young angel bluntly claimed, holding to the draping, billowing folds of Ramiel's robe as he leaned his head against her grace and his sister pressed blazing lips upon his brow in a blessing of an accepting response and-_

_-and Dean was struck with the irrational urge to break down and sob like a freakin' girl because he hadn't felt this type of warmth and comfort or overcoming safety in twenty-six years since he sat on his own mother's lap as she read him "Green Eggs and Ham" and "Goodnight Moon" before tucking him in with a kiss and the promise that angels were watching over him. _

_The hunter had no idea why he was standing here and witnessing the most cherished and intimate moments of Castiel's life through the angel's friggin' eyes and experiencing all the emotions the dicks with wings supposedly were immune to with his own dulled mudmonkey senses and mechanisms of feeling and comprehension; he had no idea who Ramiel was or why she was apparently so important that Cas would store up this one memory like a gem in the back of his immortal ages because Dean had the vague notion that he'd seen all of this before. It was like the last shadow before the rays of illumination that never came, images bleeding into his own dreams from another time and another place. _

_The immaterial sense of déjà vu was snatched out from under his feet the next moment as the angel of joy's embrace fell away and he didn't know if he was Dean Winchester or Castiel, angel of the Lord as he spiraled through eons and eons of a life that wasn't his own and were being merely handed over to his mind for safekeeping since their rightful owner was at the moment a bit indisposed, to say the least. He wasn't so sure about having his mind used as a library or storage cabinet, but thankfully, it didn't hurt. God knows (ha, how much did an absent Father have knowledge of anyway?) he'd already had enough pain in life and death, in imagination and reality-_

Dean's face was smooth and rested, as if relaxed in sleep.

Sam heaved an enormous sigh and his hulking shoulders moved from the exertion of effort. _Well, at least one of us is getting some rest._ He ran his fingers through his hair (it was getting far too long again) and leaned forwards, scrubbing at his face with the palms of his hands before sighing again; he sounded like a steam engine. However, instead of having coal or water for fuel, all the younger Winchester was running on right now was stress stripped down to the bare bones of worry and anxiety mixed together with confusion to create a haphazardly tossed salad of a mess so FUBAR that not even he could make heads or tails of it.

_Goddamn it, Dean._

Or wait, that wasn't quite right. And it wasn't really fair, either. It wasn't Dean's fault he went to Hell to save the soul of his little brother who'd been infected with demon blood because of some pissing contest between the angels and demons; it wasn't the elder Winchester's fault he was no connected in a truthfully eerie way to the one _good_ angel who'd pulled him out of the hotbox in the first place; this situation Sam found himself in right now – with a comatose brother who'd been unresponsive for nearly two days now and missing their only angelic ally – was definitely no one's fault.

Except Lucifer's, that murderous, manipulative, son of a bitch. Remember that cliché adage from ages past, "the Devil made me do it"? Yeah, well this time around, Satan himself truly was the one to blame, and the younger Winchester would be damned if anyone tried to say anything otherwise. But wait, he was, as the boy with the demon blood, already damned. So it didn't really make much of a difference in the end, did it?

Sam bit his tongue, hard, frustrated, and let his face fall back into his hands with a groan. _What now?_ He'd already exhausted the list of possibilities, scant as it was, in attempting to wake his brother. After hollering out unspeakable pain in a language more ancient than time itself and convulsing as if he'd been the one being subjected to electroshock, Dean had gone limp. The younger Winchester then had found himself with an armful of all six foot two, one hundred and seventy pounds of dead weight that even now had yet to open hazel green eyes or let slide a glib comment about how stupid Sam was acting.

_C'mon, Sammy. It's not like I haven't been dead before._

_Yeah? Well Cas isn't around this time to "grip you tight and raise you from Perdition", so – _Great. Now he was having a heated mental argument with the imaginary voice of his unconscious brother. He twisted his fingers in his hair until his scalp burned, but at least it was something else he could focus on besides the numbing worry that gnawed away at him.

_No_ _hospitals_, had been their father's cardinal rule because John Winchester would've rather patch his sons up with ace bandages, gauze, and dental floss than risk getting caught for credit card fraud or stolen health insurance and so they grew up learning how to sew up gashes that peeled apart their own skin and making cold compresses for each other when a particularly nasty hunt led to the occasional concussion or two (or three). Sam sometimes thought that he wouldn't have done too badly in medical school if the whole law deal went south, what with already knowing enough about the human body and how to keep one _alive_ long enough for everything to be okay. He knew how to keep his hands over the wound long enough so that it stopped gushing blood, how to dig bullets out with a penknife and dexterous fingers and plenty of whiskey, how to stay calm under pressure when someone's life was literally in his hands.

And yet here he'd tried every single trick in the book (and even the unwritten ones he'd memorized long ago) with no results, and it was driving him so far up the wall that he was pretty sure now would be an appropriate time for the men in white coats to come, if there ever was one. When nothing had worked, he had tried to ride it out, studying more of the angels's obscure Enochian language, mapping out the final plans of how they were going to break Cas out of a friggin' mental hospital, and meanwhile trying to remember what not being bogged down with worry felt like – but it was all kinda hard to do when his brother, sought after by Hell who wanted him dead and by Heaven, who wanted his skin, lay on the next bed like an empty potato sack.

At least Dean looked alright. Sam couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his brother's face without lines of anger or stress, without self-loathing and nightmares lurking beneath the badly cracked veneer of confidence and the harsh burn of alcohol that wouldn't let him forget. Sure, he'd seen the other unconscious plenty of times before, sleeping off a hangover or dropping from exhaustion after a hunt, but never could Sam recall a time when Dean's face had been completely free of anything and everything – and not in the creepy, weird robot impassiveness type way that Cas had donned upon first meeting, nor the blank expression of being stolen away by the claws of Hellhounds – but _peaceful_.

It should've scared him more than it did. Instead, the sight immediately made a lump lodge in his throat and murmurs of what sounded oddly like old, half-forgotten prayers drifting to the forefront of his mind. Sam swallowed hard, and carefully eased off the side of the bed, knees sinking into the threadbare carpet as he bowed his head, because there was _nothing else to do_.

_Our Father who might be in Heaven…and if You're listening...

* * *

_

_Two days ago_

There are many different kinds of pain in the world – physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and then some. Being a thirty-five year old man who'd become a very versatile actor over the years in taking upon the roles of both victim and victimizer many a time (neither part of which made him proud), David thought that he would've known a thing or two about the concept of suffering, distress, and discomfort.

Talk about missing the mark. In fact, his meager assumptions about the concept of – no, even the very _notion_ of knowing pain were just so typical of a human's puny mental capacity that the instant an archangel of the freakin' Lord jumped into his skin, David had been floored by the deluge of feelings that assaulted his senses, unable to comprehend or even fully handle the side effects of being a vessel to a celestial being and demanding to tag along for the ride instead of slumbering away the rest of his existence.

It took the first battle for David to truly become consciously aware of the realization that he knew nothing at all.

People commonly thought of archangels as Heaven's fiercest and most powerful weapon; therefore it was nigh impossible for anyone or anything to put a scratch on one of God's foremost warriors, right? Well then people were dead wrong, because apparently it was a whole different story inside the skin of human being, and up until the freakin' huge battle axe that looked like something from Medieval Europe or straight out of Lord of the Rings buried itself in his chest, David hadn't fully known the ins and outs or the fine print of the contract he'd signed with a simple "yes".

It reminded him of being pinned down behind literally a four-foot wall of crumbling concrete and nothing else, tasting sand and sweat and blood in his mouth because with his and his entire platoon's lives on the line, of course he'd been aware of every single grain of sand sweeping through the air as he cursed not knowing that fighting for honor and country and what was right would mean getting his hands stained with the blood of innocent people. But if that was teetering dangerously on the cusp of being too freakin' much, then this was plunging off the edge of the cliff and into the abyss.

Of course, Gabriel had pulled the weapon out and tossed it aside as if it was merely a fly to be swatted, but that didn't mean that David didn't feel the edges of skin slicing apart or muscles splaying away from each other or tendons and ligaments snapping like tree branches. When he'd told Gabriel that he wanted to be conscious and aware, it had indeed been for penance and a small measure of atonement for the sins of the past, but he hadn't expected _this_ – being tossed headlong into the side of Kilimanjaro, feeling like his insides were boiling to a fine crisp in those vats of oil that looked like a deep fryer from McDonalds, and then watching as his skin magically reattached to the bone after it'd been literally flayed away.

He didn't want to retreat though; he was taught never to retreat, _soldier_. And that's what he was before, what he was now (even if being little more than a willing marionette), and what he would continue to be until the last struggling breath of his life: a fighter. As a fighter, he had a stomach of steel and had personally conducted a stare down with Death upon many an occasion. Thus, it was safe to say that it wasn't going _ow, ow, fucking __**ow**_every other second as he played stowaway in his own body that was (figuratively) killing him. Neither was it being an active player in the Apocalypse itself and facing down hell spawn with nothing but the might of an archangel and the favor of an absent God on his side (yes, he'd picked up on the little fact that the Creator of the Universe and Commander in Chief of Heaven's armies was conspicuously missing a little while ago) – all of that was a walk in the park compared to the ineffable anguish eating away at God's Herald archangel.

By the measure of the transitive property of equivalence, if _a _equaled _b_ and _b_ equaled _c_, then _a_ equaled _c_, right? So if his own terms of agreement to being used as a vessel equaled feeling everything and being able to feel everything meant that Gabriel had his permission to ride around in his skin, then that meant that David had actually screwed himself over with the whole mathematical equation amounting to having great big neon signs (whose light bulbs never went out) flashing out an archangel's _guilt_ and _shame_ and _regret_ in his freakin' skull. Twenty-four hours a day. Seven days a week. And he didn't really care if the math didn't make sense or add up the right way; David actually rather enjoyed the one question – one set answer rigidity of the statistical, the algebraic, and the numerical, but it was kind of hard to focus on _anything_ at all with _this_ pounding against the walls of his mind.

Like any story or secret untold that burned the back of one's throat and settled like a weight in the gut or swallowing the acrid taste of bitter tears, actively keeping assistance at bay was hellish for a creature who was three parts judgment and wrath and unwavering righteousness but made also to be a servant of pure goodness, grace, and compassion. Gabriel may have been the mighty Herald archangel of the Lord, but he was also an angel of mercy – and an older sibling who could not offer comfort to the one who needed it the most.

More than anything else, it was _that_ deep-rooted ache that hurt.

_Gabriel?_

The archangel made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat (_of my throat_? David wondered, but only briefly. He'd learned long ago to just let some things slide without trying to figure them out; some things like pronoun agreement and proper grammar, or the fact that he was addressing someone that wasn't _himself_ from inside his own body. Kind of made a man rethink the whole 'little voice in the back of the mind' thing.) before turning his attention inwards from where he'd previously been busy in realigning his vessel's spine and sealing up the gaping wound in the small of his back where some demon had gotten lucky and charged with one of the building's wooden support beams, intent on pinning the archangel to the Earth. The idiotic evil minion had gotten himself wasted in less than a blink of an eye, and David had gotten a rather clear view of what doctors did to people with those friggin' scary needles when they conducted lumbar punctures.

_**David, **_the archangel answered by way of a greeting and a reply, and then waited for him to speak.

_I…_ And if he still had full control over his motor functions, David would've been clearing his throat and awkwardly shuffling his feet, maybe scuffing the well-worn sole of one boot against the limestone and shale underfoot (They were currently standing in what seemed to be the belly of the Grand Canyon. He'd learned quite some time ago to stop being surprised at these things too). When having an archangel's attention focused solely on you, it suddenly became all that much harder to demand that he _keep your own friggin' overwhelming emotions to yourself_, even if one happened to be said archangel's vessel. _Well, I kinda…_

Gabriel was patient. And silent. And the more David fumbled over what he should or shouldn't say to avoid getting struck down by holy lightening or something, the more nervous he became. It wasn't like he could slap the guy on the shoulder and tell him to _buck up, soldier_ because one – _hello_, archangel, remember? Doing so would be like poking a mother bear with a stick with one hand while stealing away her cub with the other. Two, it wasn't like it was his realm of expertise here, what with the whole literal deal with the Devil, missing Father, and beloved little brother. Nevertheless…

It was a bit complicated, yes. And stupid. But at the same time, David had never been more certain of anything in his entire life – this wasn't _right_.

As it turned out, there were several perks to being Gabriel's vessel, because David rather preferred not being reduced to a catatonic state or having his insides liquefied into soup. The archangel was careful to keep to his word in letting the man see everything – but what he didn't know was what else David could see. It wasn't that he wanted to be nosy or anything, but sometimes, archangels spent a lot of time doing…nothing at all, and so as Gabriel prayed or meditated or stared out into nothingness, David had gotten several flashes of memory, bare glimpses of who exactly Castiel was, and why he meant so much to one of the most highly regarded celestial beings of Heaven.

After all, besides gutting demons and hauling ass toward trying to defeat the Adversary, Gabriel thought of very little else.

So now? Now David felt like the kid's freakin' older brother too (vaguely, he wondered if that was somewhat blasphemous, calling an angel _kid_). Witnessing the lesser angel's first flight, first skirmish with a demon, first time he had been bullied and victimized by a demon made of darkness so cold that it sent David's flesh crawling, and watching Castiel streak off toward the gates of Hell like a shooting star, sapphire eyes set forward and flashing with the determination to save the Righteous Man. Thus, when standing there and hearing Dean Winchester rattle off a gruesome and descriptive epic of what was being done to "Cas"? Excuse him for getting a little pissed off himself when Gabriel had merely whooshed away to some obscure monastery somewhere atop a mountain in Nepal and effectively shutting him out at the same time.

David had seen torture before. Sometimes inflicted by the cruel fists of another upon the innocent, sometimes by his own two hands. And it was useless to go about trying to guilt trip him with all that waterboarding crap at Guantanamo; he'd seen the real thing up close and personal before, that which most others only saw sitting on the couch and hugging a bowl of popcorn to their chests. Electroshock torture, beatings that would make even the most clandestine and brutal activities of the Mafia (Italian, Russian, Japanese, who gave a shit? They were all pretty much the same, anyway) look like child's play, the extrication of teeth and fingernails one by one – all of this was nothing new.

But you want to know what _was_ new? Hearing about an angel getting his fucking wings _torn off_.

_What are you going to do about Castiel?_ There. He said it. Apparently eloquence, thy name is not David Alexander Owens, but whatever. He'd had many people accuse him of not having a subtle bone in his body, several of those people being ex-girlfriends. He could feel his own shoulders stiffening and what sounded like the drawing in of a deep, long-suffering breath. _Gabriel?_ The archangel leaned back against the wall of layered sediment and rock, tilting head back and directing grey eyes toward the sun without having to squint. In the slanted daylight filtering through the dust in the air, they seemed almost silver; far too old and otherworldly for the man's rugged, attractive features, and were overshadowed with a deeper understanding – the type of knowledge that pained those who possessed it.

_**Rest, Son of Adam. Trouble thyself no longer.**_

A thrum of what felt like electricity but what David knew to be a stream of localized strength, and then he was met with a swirl of deeper darkness, enveloping his soul entirely. When he realized what was happening, he reared back like a madman, fighting and clawing with all his might. _Son of a BITCH! Don't you DARE send me – GABRIEL!_

Silence.

Gabriel sighed quietly and the sound was lost in the vastness of his surroundings, very much like humans caught up in this confrontation between Heaven and its adversaries. Tossed about like fragile boats on a wild sea raging with Lucifer's insolence and ferocious pride, their sails of free will and faith shredded to pieces by the works of his brothers and the acts of demons from below. Used as pawns by those who had the power to wield it as such, and then disposed once their functions had been exhausted – very much in the same manner both angels and demons used their weaker brethren as each went his own way, willfully ignorant of the Father's Plan or eager to press onwards with their own devices as a means to see it all through until the end.

The archangel wrapped the man's soul deeper with and into dreamless slumber as one would a sleeping child in blankets as he prepared to take wing. Although his vessel sought absolution, that was only something the Almighty could impart and Gabriel saw no need to destroy the man as he did his duty. David was a good man, no matter what he thought of himself; his soul was pure, albeit cracked in a few places, and worn smooth in others. More than that, his soul yearned for righteousness and justice, burning with an unquenchable courage and desire for reconciliation. And like his namesake, David was not sinless, but like the shepherd boy King, he was upstanding and noble and _forgiven._ There was no need for penance.

Thus, it was unnecessary for him to witness what the servant of Heaven inhabiting his form was going to do next.

* * *

_One day ago_

There were few places truly filthier than the inside of a motel room, and especially at _this_ specific location.

It wasn't like there was a regularly scheduled maid who went around cleaning up after a client got his fill and left a happier man (for the next few hours anyway, or until the post-sex haze wore off), and rarely were the sheets changed, if ever. That was the irony in a place like this; the girls were scrubbed and perfumed until their skin smelled like flowers and felt as smooth as a baby's bottom for the purpose of carnal relations in a filthy squalor with men who exchanged grubby fistfuls of cash for a quickie or the package deal, depending on how much they could afford.

The girls here were smart and the drill was simple and uncomplicated for even some of the newer, shyer ones: loosening up the men and in effect, their wallets, with a drink or two and then leading them into one of the many back rooms where the pigs could play out their wildest fantasies until they ran out of dough. It was almost like waitressing, in a sense. Turning tables and cleaning up spills, sweeping up the messes of those specific customers that no one wanted to take – a quick process. Getting in and then getting out, ten bucks for a blowjob or up to fifty for the more adventurous, working extra hard for the occasional tip.

And for most of them, this how they earned money for a living; some people came to Las Vegas to get hitched or strike it rich or just take a turn around the Devil's playground. Some came to make their dreams come true and whenever that stage act failed, the voice lessons amounted to nothing, or no one wanted you, _this_ was where you ended up. Where men (and the occasional woman) thrust money at you because hell yeah they wanted you, and this was how you were going to pay for dinner tonight and the rent for the month.

The rooms were always filled then, reverberating with the noises that were commonly associated with the most intimate and private of human relations and as soon as the door opened to release a glassy-eyed, idiotically grinning satisfied customer, another couple swept into. There were very few rules in a place like this, but there was one definite direction: no room equaled no promiscuous activity of any kind, and therefore, no money. The competition had been quite ruthless the past few days; the level of lust around the place seemed to have skyrocketed for some odd reason, and there were actually queues for almost all of the quarters.

No one thought of taking the second room on the left, though it was empty and had been that way for the past few days. Sort of. Not one girl chose to sashay her way into the room and then arrange herself on the bed with a seductive pout and a well-practiced "come hither" look on her face; it was almost as if the room didn't exist at all, like everyone's eyes slide from the door on its left to the one on its right and didn't even pause to giver consideration to the empty spaces in between, like someone had pulled a film over the eyes of all those who worked the place, to deliberately hide what lay within. And that was probably a good thing, given that the interior of the room could've made the beaches of Normandy on D-Day look like the New York Botanical Garden.

Black patent leather Mary Janes stood out starkly against the dried bloodstains on the dingy carpet, small shoes stepping delicately over the entrails uncoiled and spilled everywhere. Patches of torn skin lay here and there, some no bigger than the square area of a deck of cards and others could've made a blanket for a small infant; an arm ripped out from the socket swung in a slow circle from where it hung by the crook of the elbow on the gaudy chandelier and upon the bed there lay a half-completed endoskeleton of a human being, starting from one foot up along the leg, half of the pelvis, ribs, and arm. A lung lay against the pillow.

She stood above the blubbering form of the demon who lay trapped in what had once been a human vessel, unable to leave due to the devil's trap painted on the floor around him with his own blood. There was no menacing might to be displayed on the girl's features, no swift and terrible judgment, only an eerie calm that was definitely at odds with the entirety of her surroundings. _Titivillus_.

The demon jerked, head rolling with effort and directing empty, bloody sockets up three and a half feet toward the face he could not see. But he recognized the presence for it was distinguishable anywhere – angelic purity and white-hot flames of grace forever tainted by the fires of below, permanently branded and marked by Hell's destruction. He tried to croak, but it was more of an unintelligible guttural groan, for it was difficult to talk without a tongue and through lips that had been peeled apart, one layer of epidermis cells after another. There was no need to ask what had happened, because much like Ramiel herself, Belial's handiwork was recognizable anywhere, by the agents of Heaven and Hell alike.

_What have you done?_ Ramiel's true voice, the most beautiful personification of Heaven's joy, was sharper than any two-edged blade, but localized so that none were harmed save for the fallen angel who writhed in agony at the feet of the human little girl in the denim jumper embroidered with butterflies and rainbows. _Loosen your tongue and answer, servant of wickedness._

From the belly (or, rather, from behind the flap of skin that used to hold together one's intestines) of the beast came a low hissing sound, the chorus of a thousand snakes flicking out their tongues to utter words in a demonic tongue older than the human invention of language as the demon snarled through the pain. _Gabriel's fledgling will be taken as Hell's Second Prince claims his prize. _

The little girl's expression was one of terror, rarely seen on the face of one so young, but there echoes flashes of millennia and ages even beyond in her wide brown eyes. The angel's wings spread so quickly that a funnel of whirlwind through the room, sweeping displaced organs and scraps of rubbish everywhere, and Ramiel's fear is a thunderstorm sweeping through the entirety of the heavens, down to the molten core of the planet, and flashing swords of lightening across the Earth – over the sleek black top of a jet black Bentley racing across the country and illuminating the handsome features of the Lord of lust within, flashing across the electric fire of the Herald archangel's wings, striking down to a shabby motel room in the middle of Colorado to shock Michael's vessel into consciousness.

Dean's eyes opened.

_A/N: You guys, __**YOU GUYS!!!!**__ The 11__th__ of February (which is in less than a week) marks the one-year anniversary of the (beginning) of the "Six Dawns" series. I want to say a heartfelt __**thank you**__ to each and every one of my reviewers. I'd like to name specific people, but that would take too long. You know who you are though, and I just want to say that I'm privileged and so very honored to share my work with such intelligent, encouraging, wonderful people. I'm not sure how this series will end up, but I'm elated to share every step of this creative process. _

_This was a transitional chapter, so I'll let you off with the little teaser that the next chapter will be entitled "Rescue". _

_Until then, please review! _


	11. Rescue

_A/N: Thank you for all your kind reviews; they never fail to bring a smile to my face. Interestingly enough, a couple of you mentioned thinking that the story would be over soon – but I'm not letting go of you guys' heartstrings just yet! Enjoy the chapter! _

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel, Belial, and Ramiel belong to me_

When asked, many people would define the word "good" as something positive or pleasing, an adjective in the sense that everyone more or less could tell when something good was being done or conversely, when something not good was being done, seeing as it was often easiest to describe a concept by what it did not entail. It was also a noun in the sense that there were those who devoted their entire lives to searching for and chasing after good, oftentimes without knowing what the hell they were trying to hunt down.

There were the learned men of old, the Platonists, who counted something as good in and of itself, good only because of its consequences, or because of both aforementioned categories. The Chinese philosopher Mo Tzu looked upon objects and practically everything else as beneficial in varying degrees according to their usefulness – which was probably why his teaching phased out of everyday life in ancient imperial China; there weren't many who liked to be considered evil simply because of their idiocy or incompetence. Goodwill was apparently dished out upon all of mankind regardless of whether they deserved it or not in that season of jingle bells and crazed shopping when children wrote to the mythical fat jolly man in a red suit (also known as the marketing tool of Coca-Cola), wishing for socks filled with candy or presents under a dead tree for which they extolled their own praises and virtues.

Yes, it was indeed an odd word, chock full of endless connotations ascribed to it and all the small print hidden within its simple four letters. Surely it would've been interesting to note how many people throughout history had tried going about how to solve this dilemma of good and given us worksheets with gold star stickers and a big smiley face alongside the Crusades, the Final Solution, and the Geneva Convention. After all, _someone_ had to think they were good, right?

Um, not so much, actually. So apparently "good" was a greatly relative term as well, situational to the highest degree and most effective in getting every moral-minded individual's panties in a twist every now and then. Try getting a priest of philosopher to tell you the meaning of the word and then you would have found the most effective way to render a grown man speechless before they plunged into a tirade of contradictions and claims making no sense whatsoever. Was it any wonder then, that those without such limitations were truly the ones better off?

Black and white always had its varying shades of grey in between though; one just had to know where to look. Like the serpent who hadn't _technically_ been lying when he nudged Man and Woman to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Like the people who crossed their fingers behind their back as they let slip the little white lies that surely wouldn't hurt anyone. What about the pair of brothers who had no day jobs and had to resort to credit card fraud or breaking and entering in order to continue protecting supposedly good people who could actually be more terrible than the belly to the ground monsters they fought against? Or the older sibling who had deliberately forsaken his little brother out of love and as part of a contract contrived with motivations more nefarious than anyone knew?

Sociopaths wouldn't have had any such difficulties about what to do, and neither would those whom we put away for fear of being menaces to society have faltered in the yes and the no or choosing the most effective course of action. Strangely enough, those whom society had locked away for mental instability sometimes saw the clearest out of us all, for a conscience was the heaviest weight that shackled one's soul for all time.

And that was why Meg _knew_ it always paid to be bad.

Technically, she's been good lately though, in a rather loose definition of the word. She'd been following her lord and master's instructions down to a T and doing everything he asked of her without question, carrying out every command to the very letter. _Ain't that funny_. She never knew that obeying would be so beneficial. The demon girl pulled a face that would've cause a baby to burst into terrified sobbing. The word was like acid, even just in her mind, because of its implications of servility and because it was just too close to something nauseatingly _holy_.

Well, regardless of what fun she'd had with her boy toy, Meg was indeed a selfish little bitch, and she knew it. Lucifer's strict instructions had been to leave the angel alone; now that he was literally a shell of frayed nerves barely tangled together, the Devil wanted time to slowly wear the angel down by doing what the Father of All Lies did best. Honestly, it was the same with humans and demons alike: the older ones never really got used to utilizing the technologies of here and now, and they always adhered to the tradition of the tried and true ways, even if said ways took for-fucking-ever. After being locked away in Hell for quite some time, it appeared that Lucifer too had yet to get with the times. From experience, Meg knew that such a process would take weeks, maybe even months – and she wasn't known for being patient.

She wanted _more_.

And going down on any idiot with a Y chromosome and extra organ between his legs just wouldn't do anymore, because while they were fine as mere appetizers, a growing girl's got to have her share of a filling meal. They just couldn't cut it anymore, the baby-faced virgins or the bad boys who liked to _think_ they knew how to be adventurous in bed; not even her favorite demon fuck buddies could even compare to the heady sweetness of a creature of amazing power tied down and absolutely pliant beneath her dominance. No one could.

Well, there was _one_ particular individual who could light that raging inferno of lust quicker than little clipped wings here, but that was because _he_ oozed pure sex in every literal meaning of the phrase and that was a bit unfair. And since she'd never had the chance to sample the Lord of lust, she just had to improvise. Of course, he wouldn't be too pleased when he found out she'd gotten her hands on his fallen little fuck toy first, but Meg certainly wasn't against sharing. The possibility of a threesome actually was rather intriguing and she'd _heard_ of all the many things Belial could do; after all, considering all his expertise…

Her fingers skimmed over the keypad, irreverently punching in a code that popped open the locks to the high security solitary confinement cell and with a smirk of victory, the demon twisted the door handle and sauntered into the room, closing the door securely behind her. Muffled, padding footsteps brought her over to the patient curled up in a tight ball on the floor, rounded with his knees drawn up to his chest and tucked under his chin, eyes wide and staring blankly at the far wall. _Well hey there, pretty angel boy._

Meg wedged the toe of the stupid ugly standard issue penny loafer under the motionless man's ribs (they stood out like sharp, jagged ridges against the billowing white sheet of the shirt and she really had to resist the urge to make them snap with a sharp kick of the foot) and shoved the form carelessly over onto its back. "Miss me?" She purred in a voice that would caused the Pope to recant his vow of celibacy.

And got no response.

"Or did you miss this?" The golden amulet gleamed weakly in the otherwise dark cell, cold and silent and now nothing more than a cheap trinket whose significance had faded along with everything else in the belly of Prowers County Psychiatric Ward. Even that garnered no response; for all intents in purposes, Castiel the angel of the Thursday could've been dead.

That was alright, though. _I'll just have to work extra hard, won't I?_ Meg smirked, straddling the hollow inward curve of the other's abdomen, licking her lips. _Extra hard…now there's an idea._ She ran manicured nails down the sides of the patient's face, tracing the significantly sharper jut of his jaw and effectively making the near-three weeks worth of growth vanish, teeth latching onto the pale newly clean-shaven skin hard enough to bruise, to mark, to brand-

Because when this demon girl wanted something, she wasn't the type to sit around waiting for it. She simply pounced, and took whatever she damn well pleased.

_Oh, but just you wait, Leonard. I'm gonna show you a nocturnal orgy that'll have you screaming for more.

* * *

_

As it moved steadily down the road at a respectable forty-five miles per hour and matching the speed limit exactly, it was clear that there was something different about the car.

It was a Bentley, but no one had ever seen a replication built like it before, not even those who had too much time on their hands and chose to spend said time poring over makes and models instead of romancing the wife who was having an affair with the friendly mailman who'd suddenly become very, _very_ friendly indeed. Any spectator would've sworn that the car was black, but it was a darkness deeper than that of the surrounding night, a streak of inky ribbon winding and turning smoothly into the parking lot like the graceful whisper of a snake through grass, leaving a chilly trail in its wake. The headlights shone with the grainy quality of an old movie projector, injecting a definite sense of mystery into the air, and when the engine's soothing rumble faded into nothingness, the car seemed to _shift_ somehow, ripples undulating across the metal framework and over to the driver's side door that opened and produced the owner of such a rare and beautiful find.

But upon laying eyes on the man, no one would've been able to remember the slightest detail about the stupid car.

There were some men who were hunky eye candy, plain and simple as that. Then there were the adorable yet dorky ones, the ones who were merely attractive but paled in comparison to the others of their kind who were often likened to Greek gods. Some men were cute in the way a puppy or baby was cute, and still others were too striking to be called anything but downright handsome. And yet none of them held a mere candle's flame to this man, who was – and there was no other way to put it – fucking _gorgeous_.

The sole of the Berluti Rapiécés Reprisés touched pavement soundlessly and yet with definite purpose, and had the still night a complimentary soundtrack, it would've been the low growl of a foreboding crescendo, an imperial march and prelude to the burning of Rome – regal, tragic, but majestic and awe-inspiring all the same. A crown of thick raven hair styled to perfection and with nary a single wave out of place enhanced the glow of a pair of cool jade eyes that stared intently at the front door of the mental asylum, peering through the mortar and brick in search for that which lay within.

The car door shut on its own with a firm click and the man stepped closer, and into the glow of an overhead streetlamp. A finely made coal black suit slimmed nicely over an obviously well toned physique and it seemed to suck and absorb all the surrounding light, wrapping its wearer even deeper in shadow. From above, the light bulb shattered in a shower of sparks, culminating with the waves of darkness that seemed to emanate from man's very and beneath the veneer of unflappable calm.

A flame flickered in the sudden darkness, although the lighter could not be seen, and the man put the cigarette to his lips, walking forward – more like sauntering, actually – with all the cool grace of a movie star of Hollywood's Golden age, like a hero returning the victorious conqueror of his enemies. He was stepping foot on the battlefield once again, this time to reap the spoils of war. There would be no taking of prisoners.

Not tonight.

This was one badass GQMF right here, ladies and gentlemen, and his name was Belial the fallen angel, Second Prince of Hell, and the Lord of lust. As of right now, he was on his way to claim what rightfully belonged to him. And no one, neither angel nor demon was going to deter him from collecting his prize.

* * *

Maximum security prisons boasted of high guard towers and perimeters of barbed wire, blinding spotlights, and eagle-eyed patrolmen who kept watch at all hours of the day and night. Sadly (as was the opinion of some of the members of the board, anyway), Prowers County had neither the adequate funds nor a budget expansive enough to cover such features for its psychiatric ward, and it was too bad, really. Had the campus indeed been outfitted with state of the art security measures, then surely at least _someone_ would've seen the cherry black-topped '67 Impala pulling into the back entrance of the compound, announcing the entrance of the last actors for the night's feature presentation with a low rumble.

_Look who's finally arrived, and not a moment too soon. _

Lucifer sat back in satisfaction as the final players for the tragic production moved into position: the grim-faced driver emerged with fingers wrapped tightly around the handle of a knife, the glyphs on the amber blade glowing in the scant moonlight, serrated sawback teeth bared and thirsty. His face was pale in the way those convalescing from a terrible illness appeared, but his steps were steady; determination had etched its lines deep into his face. This one would undoubtedly be taking the part of the guilt-ridden leading man seeking redemption.

And here came his dear brother, the perpetual sidekick – but who could nonetheless steal the show when the time came (Lucifer smiled here, because that time was coming _very_ soon) – who'd been riding shotgun and was actually now hefting a shotgun up in capable hands with practiced ease. If only the young man would only reach deep into that fire of hate smoldering low in the belly of the beast; _that_ would certainly best any weapon conceived by the mind or fashioned by mortal hands. The Morning Star surveyed his vessel with keen and thoughtful eyes, neither a director nor a composer of the events to come; merely a rapt member of the audience to the impending confrontation about to be displayed in real time.

It really was interesting, though, how this situation happened to be working itself out. Lucifer had always known there was something special about young Castiel; what he had not expected was for all the pieces to fall into place so perfectly. Of course he was the Great Deceiver and Schemer, but of course everyone needed a break once in a while. In this day and age, with all sorts of technology invented for the sole purpose of reducing labor and the need to get one's hands dirty, sometimes it felt like many had forgotten the good old-fashioned values of hard work. Nevertheless, kicking back and relaxing while everyone came to him (or rather to the angel) like ants swarming a picnic was nice. After all, running an Apocalypse _was_ rather difficult.

Who would have known that imprisoning a mere foot soldier would be like knocking over that first domino?

The trap was set then, the chain started; now the selfish, ignorant demon girl had deliberately gone against his orders as he knew she would, his not-so-loyal second in command had come to do exactly what he was meant to do (Belial could have willed himself here immediately after learning of the location, but he had driven the distance in an effort to remain unnoticed. He was a creature of habit, though – habits Satan knew all too well), the Winchesters were here to save the day, per usual (or so they hoped), and – _why hello there, sister._ Lucifer arched an eyebrow at the translucent beauty of the soul of the angel of joy, invisible as she trailed along behind the two hunters. This was a bit of a new development, but in her permanently weakened state, there was very little Ramiel could do should an all out battle ensue; she wasn't as powerful as she'd once been, and would never be again. And yet here she was, ever the doting, protective sister to her young beloved brother; her love was pure and chaste and yet more intimate than any human emotion put into words – more unconditional than a mother's love for her child, more eternal than a lover's promise, far deeper than any contract.

_How very interesting._ A wry smile twisted the corner of his lips as the Devil thought of the other former kinsman whose longing to be near his fledgling was nearly as tangible as the beating of a human heart. Although there were no such labels or assignments among the Host, every single soul in both Paradise and Perdition knew to whom he, she, or it would answer if they dared to harm Gabriel's little brother. _How very interesting indeed._

A deal made could not be broken; such were the cosmic rules and regulations drafted and set in place by the great Powers that Be, and neither archangel nor demon could break a contract once it had been made. The proof of the covenant made between the Lord's Herald and the fallen Morning Star existed in the weak pulse of Castiel's wounded, fragile, soul – that which so many were striving to claim on this night that should've been dark and wild and stormy to fit the occasion, but instead held an air of stillness. Of anticipation.

The world was holding its breath. The Devil was not.

_Lights_. The flashlight held aloft securely in Dean's left hand cast eerie shadows as he and his brother made their way through the underground maze of the decrepit level of the psychiatric ward's basement, stealthily making their way upwards to where their friend was being held captive.

_Camera_. Belial's vision was tunneled, focused down along the length of a long hallway, single-mindedly headed toward the temptation that had driven the mighty seraph to fall, toward the only object of the Lord of lust's desire; his angel ripe for the taking.

…_And action.

* * *

_

_The angels were singing again. _

_It was beautiful, the noise that surrounded him and drew him up in its embrace, full and perfect and utterly amazing because it was the first and only thing he'd been able to sense in days – or maybe weeks; or years, perhaps. Time seemed to be a never-ending stream of fluid nothingness, stretching its fingers that always brushed but never touched, on and on into the depths of infinity. _

_At first the melodious chorus came and went so swiftly that he'd been shocked to have noticed anything breaking through the shroud of silence; it'd taken a while for him to register that he'd indeed heard something, and even longer to discern what it had been. Each individual strand of the Song, each voice culminated to something that was so glorious it almost brought tears to his eyes, tears that surely would've fallen if he remembered (or even knew) how to cry. _

_He wasn't quite sure how to explain how he knew they were the voices of angels, or what angels actually were because the truth was, he didn't even really know himself. After all, he was just a man and here he was, simply existing and nothing more. But he did know that it felt like being a part of something far greater than his mind could comprehend, and that it just felt __**right**__ to assume that. More than that, it all felt familiar, somehow, like he too had once been one among a whole body instead of being cut off from everyone and everything outside and inside of himself. To be a member of the Host. _

_What would it be like to be an angel? He wished he knew. _

"That's it," Meg cooed, sliding her hands down along cool skin, running the tips of her fingers lightly along the waistband of the other's pants. "Come on, Leonard…" Sure this was a celestial warrior of Heaven and blah blah blah, and sure, he was just a bit unresponsive after she'd jammed an ice pick into his brain, but hey – he was human now, right? And that meant having a corporeal constitution and all the little ticks and natural reflexes that went with it. So, according to the manual of the human anatomy, if one pressed _here_, the party should start relatively soon.

The demon girl licked her lips because oh_,_ it'd been so _long_ since she had a filling meal – and let the PETA people rant and rave, but the meat was the only real good part – and who would refuse this buffet of opportunities and excitement?

She'd never gone down on an angel before and, well…there was always a first time for everything, right?

Meg arched her back in the long, lazy stretch of a predator after catching an elusive prey, and beneath the skin of the young woman the darkness of a demonic soul rippled in mounting pleasure, building up a rabid want for the carnal gratifications of the flesh, a greedy obsession to break and shatter and consume until there was nothing left. Her fingernails dug crescent-shaped grooves into already bruised skin and she writhed like a cat in heat, a sultry growl ripping out of her throat. _If you don't give it to me, I'll just have to take it myse-_

_**BANG**_.

The metal paneled door reinforced by a security code and five sets of locks slammed open, bouncing so hard off the wall that the plaster beneath the padded softness cracked and the molecules bonding together the steel frame scattered as the door wrenched off its hinges, no match against the low growl of a wolf marking its territory, an alpha male claiming his dominance in a thousand different demonic tongues all spitting and hissing and gnashing out the same demand no human would have been able to comprehend: "HANDS _OFF_, WHORE."

Said whore barely had the time or breath to shriek as she catapulted and cartwheeled madly and literally head over heels through space, careening slowly and painfully through each particle of nitrogen and oxygen, felt fragments of carbon dioxide and helium wedging their knife-sharp edges in through her pores and choked on the acid of neon and hydrogen because it didn't matter what area demons specialized in; at the end of the day, agony was the name of the game and torture was an art form perfected upon throughout the stretch of eternity. So, if one of the members of the upper echelon of Hell was pissed off at you, and if the Second Prince of Hell wanted you to experience the pain of crashing into each and every air molecule, then by God above or by the Devil below (well, not really, since Lucifer was actually topside now) – you _felt_ it.

All of it.

* * *

People said silence was golden, and a wise man had two ears, two eyes, and one mouth was supposed to listen and observe twice as much as he spoke. Talk was cheap and those who indulged in flapping their lips were fools and would amount to nothing, and so it went on and on. Interesting that for a topic concerning the virtues of being tight-lipped and taciturn, there was an awful lot of superfluous discussion about it, and everyone wanted to have their say about the importance of not speaking. As for Sam, he just wished his elder brother would just _say_ something already and stop acting like a mute wax figure come to life and heading down the creepy hallway wearing a look that clearly said _I'm going to fuck you up _a la _House of Wax_, or whatever that movie was called.

Dean hadn't spoken a word since they peeled out of the motel parking lot, armed to the teeth with holy water and salt and, on Sam's part, no earthly clue what the hell the plan was going to be, if there even was a plan. There'd only been a cryptic "we're going to take those fucking bastards down" and some righteous stomping into the underbelly of the psychiatric ward.

Sam Winchester was six foot four inches, and a good two hundred and twenty pounds; he'd hunted down monsters and hellspawn and combated his own personal demons before – and he definitely was _not_ scared of the dark, especially since he'd grown up knowing exactly what went bump in the night and how to blow the sons of bitches away with a round of rock salt or a well-aimed strike of a blade. But maybe it was the fact that he was still a bit unsteady on his feet after Dean broke nearly every single traffic rule in existence in getting over here (it was a miracle no one saw them, but then again Sam wasn't sure if he believed in miracles anymore) combined with not knowing exactly how he and his brother were going to break an angel out of this prison of a labyrinth that was making his stomach twist in slight unease.

"Dean?" His brother grunted in response and Sam felt his right eye twitch in minor vexation. "_Dean_."

"What, Sam?"

The younger Winchester opened his mouth again to reply, but Dean's voice was sandpaper against rough and uncut granite, recently hewn from the heart of the Earth and in no mood for stupid questions from worried little brothers; he wisely decided against it and shook his head. "Never mind."

* * *

_It was seeping into his surroundings now, something dark and heavy, crackling with a shadow of even deeper darkness and definite presence – whatever it was, he felt it leeching into his skin and for the first time in days, was able to feel something. _

_Fear._

_He still didn't know his name or where he was or the why or how of anything else, but he could taste the acidity of sharp and sour terror rising in the back of his throat, bubbling up from his empty stomach. Claws of panic were unsheathed and raking down the barren walls of his mind; he dredged up the will to move but wasn't sure if his limbs obeyed or just floundered weakly. The coolness of sheets pressed against his face now and he tried to make himself smaller and smaller or just invisible to the point of disappearing into the mist of nothingness forever. _

_The touch of fingers colder than oblivion scalded his skin, shooting streams of liquid steel through him and down to his bones, sucking dry all the marrow of life and replacing it with the cool ooze of a poisonous honeyed voice that cut and slashed and sliced through the insubstantiality of the man. "Long time no see, my little pet." A thumb stroked his temple, and he trembled; there was a sharp zing of sparks in his otherwise mauled brain. "Look at me when I speak to you, dear Cas." _

_Cas. Who or what was that and why did it seem to mean so much? From this stranger it meant nothing, less than nothing. But from some back corner of his dimmed and restricted power of recall, the word glimmered. Shifting and tensing, he drew in a shaky breath in the silence because he could no longer hear the melodious voices of the angels above – and he opened his eyes.

* * *

_

The bellow hit the air like the clashing of a thousand cymbals and the simultaneous collision of a million gongs, shattering the air and reverberating through the threads holding together the fabric of existence.

_Oh, fucking hell_ – Dean knew that sound, he _knew_ it. It was a sound off the frequency and wavelength charts and one unutterable from the throat of a mere mortal, a howl not of this Earth, one that could only be a byproduct of Hell. It had not been a dark and stormy night before, but now it was as the mental ward's top of the line fire alarm started shrieking bloody murder and blaring for all it was worth at the first detection of smoke from the basaltic and brimstone and the sulfur of the Abyss, as the wrath of the Second Prince of Hell thundered out across the grounds and the hunter was off, without a spare glance either backwards or even forwards, launching himself up stairs and through doorways only as cold terror curdled his heart within his chest. "CAS!"

Sam cursed mentally, long legs kicking into rapid motion as he sought to follow the weave and bob of Dean's flashlight up ahead lest he lose the other, because getting lost in a mental hospital would really _suck_-

_Shit!_ He pitched forward as his shins slammed into something hard and unforgiving at however fast he'd been running (maybe about fifteen miles an hour, or at least that's what it felt like) and he simultaneously bit his tongue, windmilled his arms wildly for balance, and glared down at whatever it was that had tripped him. _The hell is that – a friggin' bathtub?_ The shotgun skirted out of his hands and across cold concrete; he grappled for it and was back up on his feet in seconds.

"DEAN!"

The younger Winchester tripped up a flight of stairs and burst into a random hallway, nearly colliding with a sea of people as water started spraying down from above, scanning the sea of white for a familiar olive green military jacket or the glint of an amber knife, all the while attempting to hide the shotgun behind his back. Mentally unstable individuals plus the presence of a weapon and multiplied by demons and loud noises equaled one hell of a clusterfuck that he'd rather not get into right now. His voice was drowned out in the chaos of the panicked and confused voices of bleary-eyed patients and staff members who were trying to keep about themselves a certain measure of calm and failing miserably. "_DEAN!_"

Dean was nowhere to be seen.

_Goddamn it!

* * *

_

_The sludgy black gloom permeating through the room with slow relaxation and the steady ease of the Indians circling the Cowboys whipped into a tight coil of an emotion he couldn't name or possibly place with his inept state of mind, a nebula of roaring rage so unbound and expansive that it was spilling over. And though he hadn't moved on his own for the past days or weeks or whatever, his response was a knee-jerk reaction; a natural reflex hardwired even into a man half dead and more than nearly all the way delirious from torment and solitude. _

_He didn't know how or why, but the intensity of the fear that gripped him was terrifying in its power, and there was only one thought and one action he could put to this sea, this flood, this deluge of all-consuming, swirling nexus of evil: run. _

The hunter vaulted up the stairs, crashing through the door and it felt too familiar, too strangely like he'd done this before once and a hundred times. His steps moved faster though, more frantic and anxious because if there was one thing Dean hated, it was déjà vu – especially when he couldn't remember if it was an eerie coincidence foretelling a good or bad outcome.

_It pounded in his brain. Neurons suddenly snapped together like north and south poles on a magnet edged together millimeter by millimeter until they finally clashed and closed the space in between; his atrophied muscles jerked in response- and he ran. Stumbling and tripping over his own feet, crashing into both immovable objects that stood in his path and those that propelled him in every which direction, his fingers scrabbled desperately along smooth walls in vain for a sense of ground. _

People were screaming because of frustration and anger, because of confusion and the fear and the paranoia that came along with it; some of the patients were yowling along with the fire alarm just because they felt like it. Dean pushed and shoved his way through the crowd, throwing elbows here and spinning random dark-haired strangers around by the shoulder, looking for one pair of familiar blue eyes, looking desperately for his friend. "Cas!"

_His hands touched others like him – lost, wandering, and filled with fear, albeit not for the same reasons – and they ignored him, shoving him away like a nuisance to be ignored in favor of their own wellbeing, and once again, he was alone. Although now surrounded by many, he still barreled on through the darkness alone, and the presence was closing in on him again, closer and closer; he ran for his life and for sanity though he had none, ran because it was all he could do. _

"Cas?" Wrong person, too tall. No, too fat. Castiel didn't have a limp. "Cas!" The angel wasn't here. Dean could've swore Meg was keeping him on this level unless the bitch had already moved him or done something else to warrant – _No. Not going there._ His mind spun wildly and invented wild possibilities of Castiel getting rescued by his dick brothers or Lucifer finally growing a heart and a soul like the Grinch who stole Christmas and _goddamn_, his head felt like it was going to freakin' explode the way his eyes kept bouncing back and forth from person to person like a pair of ping pong balls. "_CASTIEL!!"_

He was going to find the stupid featherbrain, and he and Sammy were going to patch up the mess those bastards had made of Cas's wings, and soon Cas would come around and get on with searching for God and being his usual serious self with no shreds of humanity involved because _that_ was what had brought the angel of the Lord down to the terrifying level Dean had witnessed – humanity. Cas would stand there ramrod straight and stare quizzically with those too blue sapphire eyes of his that couldn't have ever belonged to any human and everything would be _alright_.

"CAST-_oof_!"

The man that ran into him full speed was so slight that he actually bounced off of Dean's frame, but with such force that he knocked a grunt out of the hunter. When the elder Winchester reached out to reflexively steady him, he could feel the sharp knobs of the man's elbows and the uncontrollable trembling in the woefully thin frame and the hands that reached up to grip at his arms as the man's knees buckled and he lifted his head – and Dean stared. _Holy fucking sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph._

"_Cas_._"

* * *

_

There is a moment in time when all things seem to not necessarily stop, but slow down. One's heartbeat reverberates in one's ears as the brain takes in flashes and images of real time slowed down to millisecond by millisecond frames that then become ingrained on the back of one's eyelids forever. People always claim that this is when miracles happen, when the nonbelievers finally see the light and for one glorious instant the blind can see. It's in times like these, that, without the aid of hallucinogenic drugs or other mind altering substances, one can reach out both forwards and backwards through the space-time continuum to touch moments and snapshots, when memories come rushing forth like a deluge of unstoppable forces meeting immovable objects.

Moments like these are rare.

_Three weeks ago... _

And as the hunter looked into the horribly bruised, spiderwebbed network of blossoming blues and purples beneath the pale skin stretched tightly over the renegade celestial being's gaunt face, as the Righteous Man opened his arms to catch the falling angel of the Lord, as Dean gazed into the blank, vacant, grotesque mess of purple-black irises and pupils that should've been a brilliant sapphire blue he sank to his knees, arms folding around his angel, his friend, his _fault_.

_Two weeks ago… _

He saw the hippie, stoned love guru of 2014 looking out at the world with razor-sharp edges of a broken smile and emptiness in his gaze, he saw the angel Castiel standing in a barn and displaying the glory of his shadowed wings; he saw faith and love and fierce devotion before the pain and heartbreak swept it all away. He saw the future and the past, the present and what could never be and what had already happened: tragedy and victory, Heaven and Hell, angel and demon, Cas and Dean.

_Days five, four, three, two, one ago._

They said that in this moment, the blind could see and the mad saw clarity.

_Ramiel's lips upon his forehead were brands of holy fire and love; Castiel's grace flared in unparalleled shock as the demon Belial descended upon him in a different kind of kiss; the eyes of the Righteous Man burned with disbelief and suspicion that flamed emerald as he plunged the dagger into the heart of the angel of Thursday; LEONARD of the nocturnal orgies; the foul hands that roamed everywhere; Sam Winchester did not mean this, he was being deceived and misled; Lucifer had ascended; Gabriel, Gabriel, BROTHER __**PLEASE**__; I love thee, little brother. _

"_Cas." _

_That was his name. Castiel. That is my name. This is the elder Winchester, the Righteous Man, and my charge. Dean is here._ His fingers found the fabric of a shirt directly of the strong beat of a steady heart, over the soul he could no longer metaphysically sense, but would know anywhere – in the fires of Hell, on the long stretch of a highway in the middle of North America, in the depths of a mental asylum. They twisted and held tight, because nothing else mattered right now. His sightless eyes seemed to be leaking moisture, salty sorrow and pain and relief that _someone_ cared. _Dean is here. _

Dean looked up from where he knelt on the cold linoleum floor in about an inch and a half of standing water, the blaring of a fire siren in his ears and with disgustingly taupe colored walls rising up on either side and stretching out down an hallway that seemed to go on forever, barely holding a terrified, _sobbing_ angel of the Lord together in his arms. He looked up, and saw the Lord of lust at the other end of the hallway, terrible and great and magnificent in his wrath, advancing forward as he radiated power and darkness like the fetid stench of too much perfume.

"_The name is Belial, Dean Winchester…"_

"Dean!" Hazel green eyes shifted direction and glanced upwards toward his shoulder; he had to crane his neck because the Sasquatch sure was tall. _Sammy's here. How did he get here? _"Dean, snap **out** of it, goddamn it!" _**Bang. Bang. **_The rounds of rock salt weren't working. But of course they wouldn't. This was Hell's Second Prince, and he would not be deterred so easily. _**Bang.**_

There was a small hand on his arm, another one on Cas's head, fingers threading through the damp dark locks. Dean's gaze swung to the side in amazement, watched the little girl who called herself Joy cup the sides of the angel's face with both hands and lift his heavy head with infinite care, like a mother and child. He let her.

"Dean, take Cas and go!" _**Bang.**_

Sam was going to run out of cartridges soon because they were freakin' _melting_ before even touching Belial's suit –which wasn't even wet from the water – as the demon drew closer, emerald green eyes now blazing with all the fury and authority of Hell behind them, spiraling wildly outwards from an epicenter of boiling will and want and outrage. Yet all Dean could do was watch as Castiel cried out unintelligibly with garbled words and grabbed for the little girl's hand, as her big doe brown eyes watered her nose turned red as it scrunched up, as she pressed gentle lips to Castiel's forehead in a gesture of beautifully genuine love.

"DEAN_!"_ Sam yelled, his voice a desperate holler.

"_Sister,_" Castiel stuttered, voice weak and barely audible above Belial's demonic roar that put dragons to shame.

The angel Ramiel let fall a single tear of sorrow from the soul of a creature created for joy, and stared the Righteous Man in the eye, speaking only one word. "_Go._" The Winchesters and their temporary charge slipped through time, space, and reality through plaster, concrete walls, and air to land outside a '67 Impala parked in the moonlight.

White light exploded in Prowers County Psychiatric Ward, magnesium combined with sulfur and something that sounded like a thousand bells split the night sky in two as the little girl stood her ground against the advancing demon, the angel of joy unfurled her ruined wings in poor protection against the being who destroyed them in the first place, and a sister willingly sacrificed herself for her little brother, then-

Utter silence.

_A/N: Sorry if this chapter was a bit confusing. I was trying to twist a whole new perspective out of thin air; hope it explained just a bit of the odd time frame. Just an FYI, this week is going to be hell week in regards to real life though; too much work to do in the shortest month of the year. I'll be taking a one to two week hiatus then. Hope this rescue scene is what you guys were looking for; please review! _


	12. Respite

_A/N: Many thanks for all of the reviews and more importantly, for your patience! There'll probably be two or three more chapters after this one, I'm not entirely sure. Please be sure to take a glance at the note at the end and as usual, enjoy the chapter! _

_____Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel, Belial, and Ramiel belong to me_

_________The blade flashed ominously, cutting through the bonds of hydrogen and oxygen molecules as it swept through the air in a wide arc and cut through the celestial being's throat, unraveling wide ribbons of grace and unspooling the threads that wove together an angel of the Lord and he faltered, falling from the heights and plummeting to the Earth below. Glorious, outstretched wings burned away, scorching ashes into the depths of the ocean floor as the creature sunk into the watery darkness, not dead because he had never really been alive, but simply no longer a part of this world; nonexistent._

___Crimson beads slipped off the edge of the victor's blade, the lifeblood of his comrade in arms, his kin – and yet the lesser angel did not spare his brother another glance as he struggled against the remaining four members of the Host who sought to bring him to the same end, fighting as fiercely as he could. They were more radiant than the Sun, filled with the holy righteousness of Heaven's will; their faces blazed like burnished bronze and their eyes were rods of lightening, striking outwards in sizzling electric energy and more fearsome than beautiful, but beautiful all the same._

_______In comparison, Castiel knew he held no such light anymore, having already forsaken his Home for his charge and for his Father's Creation, for humanity and the Earth. His vessel's trench coat was a rag compared to the gleaming white robes and silver breastplates of the others; his eyes were but marbles sitting at the bottom of a muddy pond, and even his grace faded several shades paler than any son of sanctified fire. He had never been exceptionally strong or powerful before, and here, as deft movements heavy with judgment surrounded him, it was more evident than ever as the angels attacked fearlessly, emotionless and merciless._

___But Castiel's one boon was one that no being could deny: it was his speed that he was lauded for, the speed that he now used to his advantage as he wove an intricate pattern in and out of clashing wings and striking swords that sent down showers of sparks mankind below would see as a surprise meteor shower unpredicted by meteorologists across the globe who would gasp in awe while simultaneously scratching their heads in wonder-_

___A blade pierced through his vessel's skin, slicing past muscle and skewering a lung before striking the hardness of vertebrae and Castiel cried out, feeling the edges of the sword morph while buried deep within his vessel's flesh, rearranging and jutting out at all different angles to cause maximum damage as it scraped dangerously against the fluttering of his grace. Wrenching away painfully he fled, flying as fast as he could, wings beating furiously against the air currents as he hurtled downwards and then pulled up sharply, sweeping over forests and through rice fields, reaching out unseeingly with his hands as he streaked through thirty countries and across an ocean, never slowing and nearly blinded by the pain that clouded his consciousness – until he collapsed from exhaustion, plummeting headfirst into a muddy ditch._

___They were following close behind, of course. It was no easy task to hide from the Host of Heaven when one was an angel, and a rebellious outcast to boot._

___Fingers clawed in the mud and the mire, but it was no use, for his vessel was already wounded and his wings twitched in vain. He was not as strong as he used to be – and so Castiel wrapped the trench coat tightly around his vessel's form and his wings tighter still around the flaming orb of his grace nestled deep within, dampening its glow in a pathetic attempt to hide from those who hunted him._

_He knew not how long he huddled there, trying to seal the edges of the gaping wound and piecing back together the ravaged internal organs inside his vessel's skin, counting the beats of his borrowed heart when suddenly there was a gentle touch on his wing, a caress that instantly cooled and soothed the overheated feathers._

_It was an instantaneous reaction – he jerked away, lifting the sword and preparing to beat a hasty retreat if necessary. When no further movement came, he raised his head to stare wearily at the little girl who stood beside him; all white ruffled taffeta dress and pigtails complimenting features that desperately needed growing into to even be considered cute – but her large brown eyes were dark and kind but immeasurably old, exuding something familiar from the very core of her being although it was a presence Castiel had not felt in countless eons. "Sister?" He whispered, reaching out a hand reddened with blood and smeared with dirt, his voice but a mere croak. "Ramiel?"_

_She slipped her small soft hand into his, melting away the mud as soon as they touched the skin of the other's vessel. "Castiel," she breathed, the voice that Heaven had not heard after being silenced by hellfire, the voice that sang to the newly created souls as they first emerged from beyond the gulf of darkness and into existence. The angel of joy reached out with her vessel's other hand and cupped the back of her little brother's head, gently bringing his head forward as she stood on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his forehead in an act of startling intimacy that burned with trust and healing-_

_-and they burned, twin brands of unconditional love so pure that it hurt, scorching through the skin and fragility of human flesh to seal and mend, rejoining neurons and patching the ragged gaps in cerebral tissue, replenishing glial cells and relubricating the fatty acid walls of each individual myelin sheath. Flashes of fragments of thought melded together with networks of axons, dendrites that carried electro-chemical signals and it all came rushing back like a flood trying to enter a sieve, clenching and unwinding at speeds unknown and he shook because it was simply too much after losing it to the demon's torture._

"Can't you go any faster?!"

"We're going a hundred and fifteen down the interstate; we're lucky we haven't been pulled over yet!"

_The ability to conduct rational, higher thinking processes and to hold control over his own movements struck each other and then fizzled in spits and sparks, peeling apart in mica-thin coats and splitting right down the middle. His limbs contorted, muscles contracting involuntarily and the violent force struck at him from all sides like waves, crashing in upon each other and upon him, threatening to drag him under._

"-not gonna make it back to the motel, that's still almost an hour away-"

"-have to take him somewhere where they can get rid of-"

_Voices floated around him and he tried to reach for them, tried to find an anchor with which he could pull himself up but his grasping fingers caught at nothing but air; darkness weighed heavy all around him. His mind was clearing now though, transcending the realm where only the dead of soul tread and crossing over a flow of grainy imagination trickling memories and nightmares in the same river, breaching into a certain, distinct and yet unnamable sharpness._

"Cas, hold on, you hear me? _Hold on_."

_A touch on his shoulder and he scrabbled for it, seeking leverage in the warm, solid weight but it did not come. The human body is an intricate network of systems all attempting to work in tandem with one another – motor functions, consciousness, the central nervous system snapping into place in the alignment of the brain-spine-nerves centralizing upon the concrete feel and narrowing down to the plane of his back, honing in intently, with purpose._

_Until it exploded._

"CHRIST _Almighty_- Sam, pull over!"

He made a wild grab for Castiel's floundering arms, narrowly missing getting clipped on the chin by the flailing limbs and hardly noticing the groan of rubber stripping against the tarmac as the Impala screeched to a stop on the side of the interstate. All he could hear were the wheezing croaks escaping the angel's throat, the type of sobbing, ragged breaths formed in the gut and swelled in the chest, bursting out in wild and unashamed heaves; the sound of agony stripped bare and _shit_, Cas was burning up-

Sam propelled himself around the front of the Impala, fingers slipping slightly on the handle before finding a hold and wrenching the car door open with so much strength that it creaked in protest. His brother had both hands on Castiel's shoulders, trying to hold him down as the angel bucked upwards, arms pushing weakly at Dean's chest while his upper body jerked in sharp, desperate movements, twisting and turning as if he was lying with his back pressed against a bed of hot coals.

It sure as hell didn't look like a seizure, but Sam's mind kicked into overdrive, modifying the situation to be of assistance and so he restrained Castiel's legs – which were actually quite still compared to the rest of him – and tried not to look at the way purple-black irises that should have been a clear sapphire blue stared blindly upwards at absolutely nothing, tried not to listen to the rattle of ancient languages older than dust falling in gasps and choked, unintelligible pleas from the mouth of an angel's whose voice had once been powerful enough to shatter glass and eardrum alike.

"Oh, _fuck_."

He looked up and saw Dean's eyes widen with the sudden realization that came with getting conked over the head by a two-by-four or maybe the whole freakin' forest and the elder Winchester's hands flew away as if scalded with boiling oil, curses rolling off his tongue as fluidly as any other native language. Uncomprehendingly, Sam stared as his brother moved to quickly flip Castiel over so that he lay on his stomach, head lolling limply over the edge of the seat as he shuddered, not so much going still as he lay boneless and exhausted against the leather interior, ragged rasping unnaturally loud in the sudden silence.

Sam found his voice. "Dean, what the hell-"

Hazel green eyes were squeezed tight; his Adam's apple bobbed up and down in a hard swallow and Dean shook his head once, exhaling shakily instead of answering. A speeding driver honked his horn obnoxiously at the Impala and its occupants, gracing them all with a nasty expletive and the bird, but the elder Winchester either didn't hear, or really didn't give a damn at this point in time. In the two-second window of the passing moron's headlights, Sam swore he could see moisture at the corner of his brother's eyes, and his heart thudded painfully in his chest.

Dean pointed wordlessly, like the act of speaking was too difficult to even attempt and Sam glanced downwards to the oversized shirt – white, of course; everything about Castiel had always been too pure or too alien to be contaminated with color and indications of humanity – that had ridden up a bit in the struggle. Castiel's vessel was a pretty slight guy, and Sam felt unnaturally awkward and clumsy as he reached out and gently lifted the edge of –

"Oh,_ God._"

_God's left the building,_ the little voice in the back of Dean's head said smarmily in a singsong tone, and the hunter had to resist the urge to materialize a harp to mentally chuck at the Zachariah-shaped nuisance as he too stared at the ugly tie-dye of purples on tops of blacks and blues signifying deep tissue damage that covered the entire length of Castiel's back, but it was more than mere contusions or hematoma. Both Winchesters could see the angry welts that seemed to lie beneath the skin, red and inflamed and spanning from hip to neck, bleeding out under the flesh in a way that no strip of gauze would ever staunch, and no surgery would be able to fix, much less the clumsy and calloused hands of a man who once inflicted torture such as this upon the souls of others.

Castiel moaned suddenly, shivering despite the unholy heat radiating from his skin and Dean's hand moved on its own accord, instantly descending to his friend's neck and resting there, fingers finding the pulse that was too jumpy and thready to be healthy under any circumstances. _Please, _he begged silently, not knowing who could or even cared enough to hear, praying that he wouldn't have yet another friend's blood on his hands. Not again. _Please._

Deep within his own mind, Heaven's renegade soldier too prayed, but it was a wretched supplication of a different kind; he felt tattered and ashen wings holding him close and cried out for _Ramiel, sister, my sister.

* * *

_

She had no name.

The forms identified her as Jane Doe, which was unfitting to say the least, given that Jane Doe was hardly an adequate definition for anyone still alive and breathing. It wasn't even a proper name for those lying downstairs on cold metal trays with tags tied around their big toes or those cold cases that reached backwards ten, twenty, thirty years back into the past, much less a little girl lying unmoving and unconscious in the huge hospital bed, paler than the sheets and stiller than Death itself (not that any of them knew Azrael or the Fourth Horseman on a first name basis, anyway).

She was an odd case, this little girl. The EMTs had already given her a once over and proclaimed her hale and hearty in the ambulance, but they'd brought her to the hospital because she simply wouldn't wake up. CAT scans and MRIs revealed the diagnosis to be the same as the prognosis because there was nothing wrong with her – not physically, at least. Child services had been contacted but they could find nothing about the girl as to what her name was, where she was from, or if she had any family. Missing persons and digging through all the sadly countless lists of Amber Alerts had turned up nada, zilch, nothing, and given that she had no known family to contact, the staff at Kindred Memorial Medical Center had no idea what to do with her.

And of course, there was the conundrum of why in the world she'd been in Prowers County Psychiatric Ward in the first place. So far, no one had been able to answer that one, given that the mental asylum's patients were all well out of childhood, the youngest one being twenty-four years old. So where did this white-robed comatose little angel come from?

Most curious of all though, was the single most puzzling factor that any physician had seen in all his or her years of practice – that of the little girl's right hand, which was clenched into a fist tight enough to emulate the state of rigor mortis. Diagnosticians had been consulted, chiropractors called in, and pediatricians all gathered around the patient's bed to stare, dumbstruck at the little fingers closed so firmly that, short of breaking bones, that was no way to loosen her clutch. All of them were unable to provide any even slightly credible reason for this. They all saw the leather cord that didn't fit entirely into her small palm, but no one could remove it from the unconscious child's grasp. One nurse had already tried to do so, an action that resulted in a drastic and alarming drop of the girl's blood pressure, a spike in the heart rate that nearly reached tachycardia (although those two combined pretty much flew in the face of practically everything known about the anatomy of the human heart) and triggered terrifying amounts of bleeding from behind her closed eyes.

Needless to say, no one tried to attempt _that_ again. What kind of trinket was so precious to this unnamed, unclaimed child that she involuntarily defended it from strangers with bloody tears?

_"Dr. Abunasser, please report to the third floor; Dr. Nisrine Abunasser, please report to the nurse's station on the third floor."_

The woman sighed, flicking a quick glance at the silver watch encircling a dark and slender wrist as the elevator doors slid open up onto the Pediatrics Ward, giving little Johnny Walker a kind smile as his nurse wheeled his chair into the lift. Henry over in the Oncology department was only giving the young patient six more months to live, and the rounds of chemotherapy took so much out of the ten year old that it was painful to witness; she dropped a hand onto the boy's shoulder and squeezed gently, reassuringly before stepping out with a click of high-heeled pumps against linoleum.

Dr. Nisrine Abunasser was a lucky woman in many ways: she was blessed with comely features, a sharp wit and even sharper mind, the patience and tenderness needed to work children on a day to day basis, and the staunch determination and courage to continue on even when those under her care passed away, something very few even in the same line of work possessed. Many children cycled in and out of Kindred Memorial Pediatric Ward for a wide array of reasons and illnesses, but one common denominator among them all was being graced with the pretty Dr. Nisrine's smile day in and day out, a flash of straight, white teeth set against mocha brown skin communicating warmth and encouragement.

The smile was somewhat wan now though, because talk about one _shitty_ day. You know, those days that are defined by Murphy's Law when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, some idiot spills coffee over you as he crashed into you on his stupid skateboard, when three of your interns show up with hangovers and you nearly lose a child to some stupid mistake and half a milligram too much of medication – honestly, what did they think this was, Grey's Anatomy? _Seriously_? Then the cherry on top of it all was getting summoned to the office of the Dean of Medicine and receiving the news that as the Head of the Pediatrics Department, budget cuts meant that you had to pick five of your hardworking subordinates to let go.

Nisrine glanced down at her white blouse and rubbed at the large brown stain as she walked down the hallway, attempting to adjust her lab coat over it, irritated. _Lovely. _She was raised to be genteel and forgiving, to let bygones be bygones – but she was going to hunt that little skater punk down and have him foot the stupid dry cleaners bill, because getting coffee stains out of silk wasn't going to be easy. She loved her job, but there was only so much a woman could take in a single day and given that it was already half past midnight, there was no good reason why she shouldn't be at home right now, curled up in bed with a glass of Pinot noir rogue – "Well, I'm here. What is it, Suzanne?"

The nurse on the graveyard shift waved a hand down along the other side of the hallway; she couldn't be bothered to look up from her trashy romance paperback. "It's our resident Jane Doe, Dr. Abunasser. She has a visitor; said he was her brother." Suzanne peeked up suddenly from behind the well-worn pages of _Dark Desires after Dusk_, eyes bright with interest. "He's pretty cute you know, in a rugged outdoorsy type way. I think he might've been in the military or something at one point. "

"That's nice. Did he have ID?"

"Hmm?" Suzanne tilted her head in thought. "Yes. Um…I think so." Her eyebrows drew close together in the frown of someone who knew they had some important piece of information to divulge but had forgotten. Or perhaps whose mind now bore the fingerprints of one who had the power to both take and supply information to the fragile and easily manipulated infrastructure of the human brain. "I'm pretty sure he did. He said he wouldn't take long."

"I see." The doctor pursed her lips. She briefly considered asking why it had been necessary to call her then, but chose instead to turn on her heel and move along down the corridor, heading toward Jane Doe's private room. If the little girl's elder sibling was here (and gathering from Suzanne's brief description of this individual, Nisrine gathered he was of legal age), then it would only be proper to inform him of the patient's odd situation and perhaps receive authorization or some sort of verification on what could be done next. _But how do you explain to a brother that his little sister is more or less in what amounts to midway between a coma and a vegetative state?_

Besides, there was also the difficulty of having to tell him that no physician knew what was physically wrong with the girl. Nisrine had dealt with more than her fair share of anxious, confused parents and guardians in her years as a practicing physician and the second thing they always wanted to know after whether or not their baby was going to make it was _what was wrong_. As if they could fix the situation with tears and distress, or pacing endlessly and yelling at the physicians and nurses who _were_ trying to save their child's life in between sobs.

She stopped outside the door, silently and respectfully waiting for the proper moment to enter, watching through the glass observation panels. Suzanne was right, there was a definite fetching quality about the man standing by the patient's beside, a down-to-earth appeal in the jeans and corduroy jacket – and yet Nisrine could not find it within herself to feel any sense of attraction. Not when he was laying his hand gently on his sister's head, shoulders slumping and chest heaving in a desolate sigh, not when a tanned and work-calloused hand reached out for the little girl's clenched hand, brushing against the fist-

-and the small fingers fell open immediately, revealing a small trinket that glinted gold in the darkness of the room.

_What in the name of- _Her own fingers were closing around the door handle, pushing inwards with one sharp movement, because since she had no kids to call her own, these children were precious to her and as the Head of Pediatrics, she would be _damned_ if anything happened to them while she just stood there. But the door shifted no further than an inch at most, and Nisrine Abunasser would never be able to explain what she saw next.

The man raised a hand over the little girl's still figure, moving his fingers about and drawing water from the very air around them, twisting and melding vapor and invisible moisture in a complicated sigil above the entire hospital bed, a measure of safeguard more permanent than any security system or IDs or drawn protective spell. The lights in the entire hallway flickered once, twice; lightening flashed through the night sky (or was it just in her mind?) and she saw them then, she saw not two but fifty, a hundred, _six _hundred…

_"…and then the Messenger of Allah saw the Herald in his true form. He had six hundred wings, each of which covered the horizon. There fell from his wings jewels, pearls and rubies, only Allah knows about them."_

"_Jibral_," Nisrine gasped aloud, knees buckling at the sight of the God's Herald, his archangel of revelation and Messenger to the Nations, authority over the waters of the Earth, _peace be upon him_. He turned toward her, eyes of silver catching dark brown, a pillar of white fire and holiness that hurt to behold – and then she was falling, falling into a spiral of shadow that stole memories and replaced them with dreams of a Righteous Man and of angels and demons, of tears and screams and a world perishing in hellfire and destruction, falling down around the ears of all men, everywhere.

* * *

_The world is ablaze with the sanctified fire of Heaven, wrath poured out of golden bowls and resounding from trumpets fashioned from the breath of the soldiers of the Lord, spilling out magma and white fire into those below. The Sun burned and bubble and boiled, exploding in waves of ultraviolet light and scorching the surface of the Earth, leaving behind nothing but is wake; ash and soot surrounded his form as he threw his head back and howled at the red sky, screaming, screaming, screaming for FATHER, ABBA, FATHER._

"SHIT! Sammy, come help-"

_See, the Lord is coming with fire, and his chariots are like a whirlwind; he will bring down his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire._

"-we've gotta get some liquids, maybe antibiotics-"

_For with fire and with his sword the Lord will execute his judgment upon all men._

"Cas listen to me, listen to me; you've got to calm down – it's not real, it's not real!"

_Heat surrounded him like fetters, binding him to his corporeal frame as his soul thinned out, stretched too much and too far, having undergone too much toil and the pain – it was the pain that penetrated through everything, reminding him that he was still human, only human, just a human now. Vaguely, he could feel himself disconnecting from everything, cell by cell and particle by particle, scattering across the universe because pain was all he knew as a human and he saw and **felt**__ nothing but pain here so what was so worth saving?_

_Thunder rolled across the landscape, the fist of an angry God – or was it merely the sons and daughters of light, raging across the firmament as they tore it apart, trying to find Michael's vessel and not one, but two rebellious disobedient-wayward-disgraceful blasphemies to strike down and destroy, no matter at what cost._

"Go get more ice-"

_Make them like tumbleweed, O my God, like chaff before the wind._

"-can't stay here, people are already complaining about screaming-"

_As a fire consumes the forest or a flame sets the mountains ablaze, so pursue them with your tempest and terrify them with your storm._

"We can't move him _anywhere_ like this-"

_He hurtled through time and space, reaching out blindly with groping fingers and searching hands because he cannot see anything, cannot stretch out with the grace he'd kept at the core of his being since his creation, seeking a way out of this unnamed, foreign labyrinth created by the weakness of soul and fragility of the human body, seeing with no sight and feeling that which he wasn't sure had ever happened or was even real._

The young fledgling burrowed tight in the archangel's grace and Gabriel wrapped his wings tightly around the little brother he loved so, whispering the lesser angel's name over and over again: _CastielCastielCastiel-_

Heaven's mission was to rescue the soul of the Righteous man so he looked neither right nor left as he shot through the fires of Hell, streaking past fallen angel twisted demon, climbing over the bodies of his slain kin with nary a wayward thought besides the _purpose _as he neared the flaming purity amongst a sea of evil because he was Castiel, the angel of Thursday and loyal soldier of the Lord, for His will and His way.

_"You spineless, **soulless**__ son of a bitch."_

Dean was an unbearable, crass, stubborn, _disobedient_ man and Castiel was – he was – the angel of the Lord was _frustrated_ at his charge's lack of foresight, at his inability to take into consideration that there was more in the world than his own happiness and comfort. The sarcasm and derision Castiel had endured and taken in stride because he was patient and understanding and a silent warrior of righteousness. He could accept the other's disbelief because man was of little faith and disbelief was commonplace among their feeble-minded kind. But what he would _not_ accept was Dean's ridicule of Heaven's plan and all that his brothers and sisters were trying to do in stopping Lucifer; he would not take another word of derision out of the mouth of this insufferable man who tried to deny the existence of his Father.

And that was all Dean Winchester was, a ragged hole of an ungrateful _mess_ Castiel had taken care to piece back together himself even after Raphael had restored the hunter's soul, that was all he was ever going to be: a mere man. The man Castiel had pulled out of Hell bucking and screaming and clawing at the angel's wings screaming _no, no, no, put me back where I fucking deserve to rot; I'm not worthy, I'm a monster – I'm DEAD-_

Castiel had dragged this wretched sinner out of Hell, and he could throw him back him.

_"What do you care about dying, the Cas I thought I knew is already dead – we're done."_

It weighed heavily on his tongue although he had said not a word, staying silent because they were welling up in him anyway; his vessel's throat was closing up like a dying man's, coated with the implications of the act instead of blood bubbling out of collapsed lungs and holes where flesh should've been. His skin and flesh was unmarred except for where he had dragged the blade deliberately across the skin, and the acrid bite in his mouth was not the copper of blood; that was dripping from his fingers and slowly down the white plaster of the wall as he drew the sigil and gave up himself for the sake of the wretched sinner, for his charge, for the Righteous Man.

And disobedience was the pain of torn wings, the howl ripped from his chest as Raphael's hand descended to strike and burn and destroy; disobedience was the name of the bittersweet taste of breath and life stripped away as the archangel incinerated his grace into oblivion and _Cas_ willingly sacrificed all of himself, losing everything.

_"Don't you dare die on me, you son of a bitch!"_

_That voice, that voice – he knew it. If there was nothing else in the world he knew right now, he knew this… _Dean.

_Dean.

* * *

_

He stood in the chill air of a place that did not exist, somewhere between reality and imagination, actuality and illusion, real and unreal. There was nothing here; the cold wind whipped at him and tried to propel him either one way or another, because no one was meant to be here, no one was supposed to be here. The differentiation was important, because all too often there were those who misconstrued what was _meant_ to be with what was merely assumed to be on the basis of evidence without proof or knowledge.

Neither living nor the dead, neither demon nor angel, man or woman – and certainly not the mighty messenger of the Lord, whose purpose was defined in his title, his name, who he is and who he was created to be. He was a ribbon of unwinding light, the word to mankind and to the soldiers of Heaven; he was a never-ending sentence crawling on through all of eternity, sometimes dry and sometimes monumental, filled with ellipses to break up the stillness when there was silence from the throne of YAHWEH Lord God Almighty.

But there had been silence for a while now and the pencil hovered hesitantly over the page, the herald's breath catches in his throat; was this where the period was placed? Were all things truly now at an end? It should have been a time of great celebration, of rapture, of the blowing of the trumpet and clashing of the symbol as the Earth was made purified and all things were made new – and yet there was nothing, and he realized that he was tired. He had seen much, spoken much, delivered much – and now, the steadfast soldier found that his soul was weary. Were all things truly meant to come to this? To have broke strike down brother, abandoning ties of family, of love, of soul – was – _is_ this a part of the plan of the all-merciful Father?

_God's voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding. _

He'd been the thick strokes of ink upon parchment and tiny perfect script in a discrete and careful hand, arching up over the bow and swooping down to make the next character; he'd been Times New Roman marching up and down and across a page. They were not his words, they _were_ him, for he was the message and that was his function, his purpose. He was a mouthpiece, a scroll of words, _dear woman, be not afraid for I bring good news of great joy _and that was _all_.

But how long before the messenger fell silent, before the message lost meaning?

_"The Lord shalt always guide thee, Castiel. Nothing shall ever distance ye from the grace of our Father, nor from my love, little brother."_

Gabriel turned and faced the trickle of water seeping out of a crack in the sky from the east, a mere droplet compared to the deluge being kept at bay behind the floodgates; he closed his vessel's eyes but could still see within, and his soul stretched in anguish, for was this the will of the Lord? To bestow upon his servant a little brother that the archangel took under his own wing when he was but a fledgling, whom Gabriel had come to love only a little less than God and Master of all, and then to take him away?

_Castiel's gaze was one of adoration as the lesser angel followed him around, reaching out to grasp a handful of feathers and tugging gently, please brother, until Gabriel gave in and scooped up the fledgling in his arms, **his**__ fledgling; the angel of Thursday had no time now for such frivolities, he trained and fought and did battle and Gabriel missed the days of innocence from young Castiel; his little brother fell into the fires of hell as but one blazing star among the multitude but brighter still to the archangel's soul, burning burning burning with unquenchable duty and love that Belial's evil had not managed to steal-_

Was Castiel simply yet another message for the Herald archangel? And for what purpose? Gabriel had never before questioned any of his orders or pushed against any of Heaven's authority, he had never before broken his word. But as he fell silent and no message curdled in the air, Castiel's cry for him, for _Gabriel, brother Gabriel_ struck his soul and the messenger raised his face to the immutable grey sky and wept, golden amulet clutched to his chest.

_A/N: I'm sorry for this sub par chapter, midterms crept up on me before I realized it, and that among other things like currently attempting to balance out some personal matters made for one very stylistically awkward chapter. But that's not the important part._

___In a review, a reader asked if it was possible to offer up suggestions for what to right and then expressed hesitation for fear of having offended me. I would just like to say that short of completely bashing anything and everything I've written, it is highly unlikely I would take offense to anything. I write partially for my own enjoyment but also partially for all of you dedicated readers, and I love your reviews and your input, your criticisms and suggestions. Please don't feel shy when reviewing and after I pull myself together, I would most definitely love to take any ideas or requests, just supply me with the prompt and details and I'll still what I can do; until the next chapter then, please drop a review!_

_Scripture used in this chapter: Hadith 4:54-55 (from the Koran), Isaiah 66:15-16, Psalm 83:13-15, Job 37:5_


	13. Cracked

_A/N: Hello dear readers, and I'm back! I hope everyone caught the one shot I posted last week in place of the normal update. Given the pacing of this story, I had to rework several parts of what will soon be the end, so thank you for your patience; enjoy the chapter! _

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel, Belial, and Ramiel belong to me_

It was a beautiful day outside.

The sun was shining, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and a cool breeze blew in from the southwest, tumbling gently down the rolling slopes of the Colorado Mountains, sweeping in and out among the waving golden stalks of wheat, rippling through the tall steel buildings of the city and caressing the cheek of a passerby here and there. It was the type of day that suggested the impossibility of everything being right in the world and set upon the illusion that everyone liked to believe for at least one instant in this screwed up world, no matter how short or fleeting, the illusion that everything was going to be okay.

It was the type of day that made Dean Winchester want to shoot himself in the face.

Well…not always, and not on principle. The hunter supposed he actually should've been grateful for weather like this, because despite the fact that it was unseasonably warm (for that normally disgusting period of liminality between fall and winter anyway), it was better than having dead fish raining from a blood red sky or whatever other markers of the Apocalypse the book of Revelation enumerated. No, what really annoyed the hell out of him was how the atmosphere and wind currents of the world thought it perfectly acceptable to deliver sunny with a chance of rainbows and sparkles and languid strolls down the streets of Pleasantville when he was sitting here in a rundown motel in Nowhere, USA, watching over a deathly ill disgraced angel of the Lord without the faintest idea of how to help alleviate even a fraction of the pain inadvertently caused by his hand.

"_I'm hunted, I've rebelled and I did it, all of it for you." _

There was even a stupid fat bluebird twittering its cheery notes somewhere outside the firmly closed, curtained window lined with salt that would soon be nothing but a bundle of feathers if it didn't shut the _fuck_ up soon and Dean chose instead to turn his head toward the prone form of his friend, carefully arranged in the recovery position and packed with so much ice that if not for the unsteady rise and fall of his chest, Castiel would've looked like a corpse ready to be transported to the City Morgue. Well, that and the IV in his wrist that was trying to make up for three weeks worth of starvation, dehydration, and abuse with mere sugar water and a shitload of broad spectrum antibiotics; Sam hadn't known which ones to get – it wasn't like there were neatly typed out labels that read _for if your angel's wings have been carved up like a freakin' Virginia ham_ – but it didn't seem like anything was doing the slightest bit of good. Who knew what kind of drugs Meg had pumped him full of to keep him down under?

_Bitch,_ Dean groused, leaning forward and pressing his feet into the carpet from where he sat on the edge of the only other bed in the room. His eyes were red-rimmed as they took in the sight of the same individual who'd declared _you should show me some respect_ and screamed out in a thousand dead tongues for his Father, lying on his side so as not to aggravate the injuries on his back, one leg bent to support his body and with his head tilted down to ensure that he wouldn't choke on his own vomit or the nightmarish sobs that occasionally shook his entire frame and burned deep into Dean's memory.

But Cas was still now, _God_ he was so still and so woefully thin that Dean could count each individual rib, one-two-three as they bulged up from underneath waxy skin – except for the garish exhibition of bruised skin that displayed ruin in the highest freakin' definition there was all the while screaming tragedy in the truest sense of the word. He'd originally wanted to opt for sweating the fever out, but then his temperature had climbed high, so high that both brothers had decided that getting an eyeful of the results of the angel's imprisonment and sticking with all manners of cooling agents was better than the fever-induced seizure that nearly broke the damn bed with how wildly his limbs had been contorting and sent Dean's heart leaping up into his throat.

"_And you failed."_

Castiel made a low keening noise, something stuck in between what could have been a muffled cry and a sound too perilously close to a whimper for comfort and it punched Dean hard and fast in the gut because he couldn't stand it anymore, he didn't want to be here another minute longer. He didn't want to see the steadfast soldier he knew to be reduced to such a state, because not only was it demoralizing to the highest degree, but simply because it was too personal of a sight: like when grown men wept for their mothers when faced with impending tragedy and disaster, every tear and hitching breath as desperate and starved for mercy, relief, and love as any helpless child crying out for _Gabriel_ and _Ramiel _(he could only assume Cas meant Joy, the little girl who apparently was…or _had_ been one of the only angels the Winchesters ever encountered with a heart; later research by Sam affirmed Ramiel as the angel of Joy) and…_Dean_.

_Gabriel, Ramiel, and Dean. One of these things is not like the others. Try to see if you can pick out the name of the dick who got his very own angel, persuaded said angel to give up all of himself, left him behind to get smote by an archangel and then let him get kidnapped and tortured within an inch of his life by Lucifer himself. Here's a hint, the culprit's the only one whose name doesn't end in –el and thus by default isn't part of aforementioned angel's family and so doesn't deserve to be even mentioned in the same garbled sentence or strangled plea. _

And it was at times like these, that Dean wished he'd never been pulled out of Hell by a creature of flaming purity and righteousness; wished to have never been jerked into the future by Zachariah so he couldn't compare Castiel's current state to the hopeless, nymphomaniac junkie he'd seen a mere hop, skip, and a jump in the future; it was at times like these that he actually prayed aloud to nobody and everything all at once, clutching the motel's raggedy copy of the Gideon Bible to his chest for the familiar head tilt and inscrutable blue gaze that was _Cas_ instead of empty purple-black irises and pupils staring up at nothing at all. It was at times like these that Dean really wanted to give up trying to play hero and tuck tail and run, getting the hell out of dodge in a hurry and not look back at the fragmented mess he'd made. Again.

And didn't that just make him the most selfish son of a bitch in existence?

At least Sam had gotten some sort of an out, in volunteering to drive the extra ninety minutes and stretch of miles of interstate back to their old motel just to pick up the essentials and check out (not that Mr. Riley Masters would've minded another sixty bucks on his credit card) – but then again, Sam leaving had pretty much been a unanimous decision. Over the past couple torturous days, Castiel had been coming to slowly, dredged up from a sea of hallucinations up into the uncontrollable tremors, vomiting, shivering, and shallow, rasping breaths that was the ugly reality of drug withdrawal. The jury was still out on the state of the angel's mental faculties though, because although he'd clearly been coherent enough to recognize the elder Winchester for who he was, he'd gone freakin' batshit _insane_ when Sam opened his mouth and tried to calm him down, swinging a wild fist that clocked Sam right in the eye as he stuttered out something about _demons _and _Lucifer_ and _please, NO _in between shuddering breaths. After that, Sam's face had immediately taken upon the look of a kicked puppy and although both of them knew Cas didn't mean it, the younger Winchester had left pretty soon after that.

A twitch, a huff of badly labored breath, and a shift of overheated skin against cotton pillowcase brought Dean to Castiel's side instantly, one hand hovering over the ice pack on the back of the angel's neck. "Cas?" he murmured softly – or rather, tried to, with a voice rough with stress and worry. Had not the other's back been literally untouchable, calloused fingers and a hand rough with years of toting weapons and wet with invisible blood would have been rubbing soothing circles and tracing the well-learned lines of devil's traps, just like twenty-five years ago when the same hand, albeit much smaller and padded with softer skin, had done the same for his little brother whenever Sammy took ill. "Hey, easy now."

The only answer was a weak moan and abortive movement to roll off his side; Dean reached out and caught Castiel's lightly, keeping the abused flesh from making contact with the bed just in time because as the Winchesters had found out the hard way, not even a mattress and comforter could touch the angel's back without eliciting heart-wrenching screams that brought the motel's stuffy manager banging on their door and almost goaded Dean into unloading a round of rock salt into his fat ass. Needless to say then, both Winchesters had been keeping vigil around the clock to make sure Cas didn't shift over onto his back.

However, that did beg the question why the hell Cas was currently trying his hardest to do exactly that.

"Cas?" His hands were settled gently but firmly on Castiel's shoulders, thumbs resting lightly against the dips of the juncture where collarbone met the neck muscle that were too hollowed out to be considered healthy on any level, trying to keep- _what the hell? _Dean blinked, peering closer and caught glimpse of the small, red flecks dotting Castiel's lips and the starched white of the sheets_. Oh. Shit. Oh, SHIT. _

"Dean?" The elder Winchester started at his own name and fumbled underneath the bed for a split second, arm jerking upwards and finger brushing the trigger of the gun that was pointed straight and true like a mere extension of his arm, aimed at- "Whoa! Hey!" Sam protested, doing his best to hold up his hands in the universal sign of innocence while trying to juggle an armful of their previously abandoned luggage and more supplies pilfered from the local hospital. "How's he doing?"

The look on his face must have said everything words could not as he slowly lowered the gun because Sam's countenance stretched with worry and his brother immediately dropped all he was holding, long legs crossing the room swiftly to be at his side in an instant. "What is it, Dean?"

* * *

The longer one stayed on Earth, the more one became like the humans that populated it. Simple and true, it was an undeniable fact for both angels and demons alike, for better or for worse. The only difference was that the demons embraced the change with gusto, reveling in all the delights Hell couldn't offer while the angels stoically and stubbornly resolved to keep the sticks up their asses at all costs. That is, until they too discovered how interesting or advantageous indulging in sin could be – like that Zachariah fellow, for example. After all, one couldn't really expect the mice _not_ to play when the cat was away and when far from the Silver City Above and endless mantra of _holy holy holy, Lord God Almighty_, it was all that much easier for an angel's grace to flicker and fade.

But the angels weren't really the highest priority item on Malthus's list (unless it was news or gossip about Heaven's latest renegade; _then_ he was most definitely a fly on that wall – literally); as odd as it may seem, keeping his wits about himself and watching his own tongue and actions was. Because, oftentimes, awareness of oneself in the presence of the Lord of lust was the only thing that kept him from being decapitated, disemboweled, flayed to the bone and _then_ maybe finally killed, if he was lucky enough. Or maybe it wasn't all that odd, given that he _was_ the superior demon's personal assistant, in a manner of speaking. And here he'd appreciate it if people didn't start quoting The Devil Wears Prada (Belial actually preferred Armani, or some obscure designer on an island in the middle of nowhere whose designs cost more than the Virgin Mary's firstborn son) but yeah, slaving away and responding favorably to the Bossman's every whim was basically the definition of his current existence.

Naturally then, it was essential for a demon such as himself to know the ups and downs of Prince Belial's mood, to memorize every single flicker of emotion (or lack thereof) across the face of his newest meatsuit – thank _Satan_ Belial had finally settled on one for a period of time longer than merely two weeks – because at times, his superior was a tightly locked vault made of mirrors, reflecting everything around him and reacting like the most skilled thespian. He was, of course, the Lord of lies who had the art of falsehood and deception down to the finest brushstroke, the final note of an extravagant symphony, the pinnacle of a passionate persuasive speech; sometimes Malthus even had difficulty figuring out what the hell the superior demon _wanted_ as he tried to wade through the flowery speech and idioms, taking apart each piece by piece. He was pretty damn sure that Belial did so just to fuck with him too, if the other's shit-eating grin had anything to do with it.

And then there were those scant instances in which Belial made no great riddle of what was going on in his mind and though rare, one certainly didn't have to take a picture to ensure it lasted longer, because upon these occasions, Malthus knew the only proactive and self-preserving course of action to take was to run like hell and duck for cover. When the Lord of lust was pissed, everyone knew it and maybe, just _maybe_ if you weren't the first thing in his warpath, he'd let you off the hook with just a shredded kidney, a missing eye or two, and a spleen or intestines turned inside out.

Ah, but even _that_ wasn't the worst. Having to run and duck for cover wasn't even brushing the surface of the Hell Belial was capable of releasing, and Malthus actually preferred standing in the eye of the hurricane of what all in all equated to a squalling toddler's temper tantrum when said child didn't understand the definition of the word _share_…only with a lot more destruction and a higher risk of getting torn from limb to limb if anyone uttered a syllable at the incorrect time or blinked the wrong way.

_Malthus._

The demon posing as just the friendly neighborhood doorman cringed at the voice in his brain, sizzling like flesh and fat pressed against hot coals before sparing a glance heavy with trepidation up at the penthouse way up high; he cleared his throat once, twice, and again because although telepathy warranted no need for such an action, it was a vain attempt to calm frazzled nerves. _Sir? _

_A word, if you will, old sport. _

And holy shit, that had the lesser demon cowering into a shivering ball of paralyzed fear somewhere between his meatsuit's spine and posterior ribs because this was Belial at his most terrifying, this was the Second Prince of Hell in all his former glory, the fallen angel who'd once stood unabashedly before the Throne of the Most High as a member of the class of the seraphim, as a warrior of the highest prowess who needed neither outward shows of outrage nor backing from those higher up on the totem pole to his power. Behind the politeness of tone lay the ice of melded hellfire and steel sharper than the sword he once wielded, underneath the curtness of manner was a wrath that didn't explode like a bomb or erupt with all the fury of Mount Vesuvius (that one was actually before Malthus's time, but he'd heard plenty about the scuffle with the archangel Gabriel and what else went down there.) – no, it _blazed_, a molten river of part cool calculation and part icy vengeance best served cold. Fire burned and ravaged and destroyed, but ice was solid and permanent, lasting so long as the conditions permitted, and the two combined resulted in a force to be reckoned with specifically because of its unknown attributes and qualities, its ultimate potentiality to do anything, _anything_ at all.

And that was why Malthus preferred the temper tantrums or the glib, cryptic language, because Belial at his worst was a Prince of Hell that the demon didn't know at all.

"Lord?" he ventured, bowing low at the waist, a little winded from blinking out of place on the street below and into the penthouse in less than a second. Politeness was always good when facing a psychopathic evil son of a bitch with the predictability of a child who, when it all boiled down to a single inescapable fact, was fucking _scary. _Sure, Lucifer now walked the Earth, but this demon's allegiance first and foremost was to the Lord of lies because he was the one who, besides the Morning Star himself, could make all demons everywhere piss themselves out of fear at the mere mention of his name.

He sat there behind the beautiful teak desk, hands crossed on top and not a hair out of place, not a twitch of the eye to indicate the slightest hint of trouble – a picture of cool serenity, a pillar of staunch unflappability, an immovable and emotionless idea of every single worst nightmare and most tempting desire twisted so finely into one entity underneath the weak disguise of human flesh. In just looking at him head on, it was nigh impossible to venture a guess that behind the exquisitely tailored suit and features schooled into handsome impassiveness, a high Prince of Hell was bearing agony in stoic silence because no one escaped the blowout of an angel's exploding grace, even if said angel happened to be considerably weaker than her former brother.

_Dear Ramiel, such a firecracker. You are always full of surprises, my sister._ Belial eyed the cowering demon before him with an air of haughty disdain. _Or…were, as of late. _He highly disliked deigning to command others to go about his will, especially when matters required the utmost importance and weighty consequence, when it concerned his little pet. He'd discovered a while ago that even the smallest measures of trust resulted in a whole lot of misunderstandings which then led to him having to hunt down the bloody idiot who fucked things up. And believe it or not, sometimes even dissolving demons molecule by molecule got a little tiresome; ask him again why Earth was much more enjoyable than spending an eternity in Hell.

_Feh. _He reached into his pocket and pulled out the silken piece of material, rubbing the handkerchief in between his fingers. To think that he was in shape to be moving anywhere was a laughable notion, and the Lord of lies was intelligent enough to discern between truth and falsehood, even – especially – to himself. Not when any sudden movement brought the phantom pains of his nonexistent wings contorting, rearranging their structures, and gouging themselves deeper and deeper into the core of his being. _Ah, well. _He supposed he would have to give up this small portion of the chase. _On your knees, dog. _

The white silken handkerchief spotted in areas with the faded dull brown of dried blood fluttered in the air and the creature that caught might have been called a dog, although it was more smoke and soot condensed into the wispy shape of a hound on all fours standing where the demon in the doorman's skin had been standing not a moment earlier, eyes trained upon his superior who had commanded him into such a shape. Two pointed shapes that might or might not have been ears cocked as Belial spoke in the guttural growl of the beasts of the Pit. "Find them."He said curtly, paused, and then amended the order, motioning at the momento now clasped in between strong jaws and rows of razor teeth of darkness. "Find _him_."

No need to ask who 'he' was, because Malthus was no fool; but how, pray tell, was a hellhound supposed to find a nearly fallen angel of the Lord? The lesser demon made an inquiring sound that wasn't quite a growl of inquiry and wasn't quite a whine of protest, taking a half step forwards and inclining the billowing shadows of its head in confusion. Belial raised an eyebrow at the lack of immediate compliance; he withdrew a hand from underneath the desk, pointing the shiny barrel of an all too familiar revolver – and the dog yelped, ducking its head, tucking tail, and scampering out of sight.

Belial's sudden grin was a flash of teeth, sharp like acrid smoke, knifelike in the darkness. _I'll bet you found it funny, having little Castiel down on his knees begging for release without me there to witness such a beautiful sight. How exceedingly selfish of you, brother. _His vessel's jade green eyes flashed something soft and dangerous._ You want to play around with my toy? To tempt and torment him with the seduction of promises whispered in the dark? _The Lord of lust spun the Colt lazily around his trigger finger, tilting his head back with a bitter bark of laughter.

_Let's play then, shall we Lucifer?

* * *

_

_The light of Heaven was amazing in its beauty and so much brighter than he remembered, so different because now he could feel the sense of family and belonging, love and mercy divine rushing over him in waves almost as tangible as the wings rooted in his grace and anchored solidly to his back, strong and pure and whole. Human feelings were multiplied tenfold, a hundredfold, and even more in the halls of the Lord and it truly was Paradise, his Home at the time of his creation, when brother had yet to become embroiled in dissension and discord that ultimately led to the near-fatal injury and permanent incapacitation of Heaven's joy. _

_He sought to take a step forward, to see his kin again and to join the Host's song of praise and everlasting worship for their Father, perhaps to also reconcile and reunite with his brother Gabriel and maybe to also see his sister Ramiel's beautiful soul – but the firmament beneath his feet trembled once, and then, without warning, gave way to nothingness at all. _

_**AG**__! The angel's cry pierced the air as he slipped, fingers grasping for a hold but finding none. Heaven's brilliance grew dimmer and dimmer as he tried to maneuver his wings into action but they too were fading and falling apart, feathers catching aflame and burning into ash that lifted upon the currents of the wind high above him as he continued to descend further and further down at a wild pace, plummeting from the Highest Place of the Most Holy of Holies. There was nothing he could do to catch himself, nothing he could do to stop from __**falling**__ as Lucifer did and then the voice of the Ancient Serpent and the Son of Perdition echoed all around his form, hissing "Castiel, Castiel, Castiel…we are not all that different you and I." _

_It began pulling at him from all directions, enticing him to comecomecome here, forsake all that you are and have ever been; he writhed and twisted but could not break free as the darkness closed around him with purpose and he could see nothing anymore, couldn't escape- _

"-he's waking up…think we should wait until he-"

"-don't have the _time _Sammy, the bone could shish kabob his lung at that angle; you saw the blood-"

"I know, but Dean-"

_Dean?_ _From the back of his mind the name gleamed like a beacon that was still invisible but he reached for it nonetheless because it felt honest and caring and real; he surfaced with hands grasping and grappling for a hold, finding the softness of cloth and warmth of life and tightening with all his might. This was secure, this felt safe and he wouldn't let go this time because Gabriel – no, this was Dean and he was safe…_

"Dean…Dean, Dean…" the whimper slipped from his mouth like a prayer, a litany of wretched desperation and Castiel felt a hand cradling the back of his head gently, and another rubbing small circles at the bony knob of his shoulder. "Don't want to fall," he pleaded, tongue thick and words slurring together; the individual holding him with such great care stiffened ever so slightly and Castiel tried again because he had to make himself heard, had to put forth this one request. "_Don't let me_." His fingers twisted in the flannel of a checkered shirt he couldn't see as he openly displayed all of his vulnerabilities as a human in this singular moment of greatest weakness. "Don't…don't want…please, please-"

"Shh, shh. Cas. I've gotcha. It's okay. I've gotcha."

He sagged, tension seeping away and leaving him boneless against the hunter at the gruff yet gentle reassurance because Dean would never lie to him. Even though he couldn't read anyone's soul anymore in order to determine truth from falsehood, he knew that Dean was honest and righteous and true what he said was a promise. Always.

Dean wouldn't let him come to harm.

"Hey, Cas?" The hands were guiding him back now slowly and he immediately stiffened – why was he being pushed away? He began to tremble for he had already lost his sister, been abandoned by his brother and knew not where his Father was… "Cas," the familiar voice came again, steady and soothing. "Listen to me. Okay? It's alright. I'm just gonna let you lean back against Sam for a sec while-"

Suddenly there was a strong arm encircling him and pressing firmly against his stomach, cautiously and carfully pulling him back against someone who was _not_ Dean, but rather the younger Winchester brother. Although a part of memory twisted together with rational thought, the part that had been angel throughout millennia of existence and endless cycles of life and death, the part that bore knowledge both infinite and intimate and wisdom from Above knew that Sam Winchester was of no harm, although recollection brought to mind the Sammy that was Dean's little brother and a hunter both faithful and repentant and ultimately kind of heart, Castiel uttered a choked cry and bucked upwards against the hold, inadvertently driving his sensitive shoulders backwards into Sam's chest.

"Whoa! Castiel, it's okay! It's Sam!"

Sparks exploded across the back of his eyelids in sharp bursts of terrible frost and flame and yet he continued to struggle, flailing and thrashing because the larger part of him only recalled Sam Winchester as the boy with the demon blood, as the one who had raised Lucifer and crushed Alastair to nonexistence with only an outstretched hand and his mind, the prodigy of Azazel's selected children – the larger part of the here and now, the part of him that was human and could not stop being so. He felt the phantom pain of Sam's raised fist connecting solidly with his torso, his face; the ringing of a crowbar through the air before it struck his flesh and bone, and the knife that tore through all barriers to lay bare ribs wrenched from the spine one by one-

"Cas! Cas, it's me. I'm here. Dean's here." There was another voice in his ear now, draining away all the panic and he sank backwards into Dean's strong hold, leaning his back lightly against the hunter's chest because although that action still inflicted pain, this was someone he could trust. For a few moments there was no sound or movement save for his harsh breathes vibrating against the air and the unsteady rise and fall of his chest and the singing of atrophied muscles brought too quickly into full contraction. A rustle of clothing, and then a tentative touch below his neck and upon an upward curved bone that had healed naturally but in misalignment after being trampled underfoot by a demon three weeks prior. It still triggered twinges of soreness now and again, but wasn't too much of a discomfort-

_Crack._

His head fell back against Dean's shoulder at the first break with a strangled gasp; the hold around him tightened as he thing instinctively twisted, mentally screaming for Dean to _stop, please, please _but not having enough breath to shout aloud-

_Crack._

"Ag, bitte, haud!" Castiel shrieked, head snapping to the side and upper body moving in a frantic convulsive movement, still trying to pull away but Dean was strong, stronger than him for once, and was it possible because Dean couldn't understand him? "Mitra, vi elemosion, racham, _eleos-_"

_Crack._

Castiel stopped fighting. Dean was speaking to him again, soft tones intending to soothe and comfort but he couldn't hear over the pain that swallowed him whole. "_Iain?_" The angel sobbed openly, because _why, why, why_? "Dean…" he gasped, words barely audible apart from the heaves stealing his breath again. _Why are you hurting me? _He felt fingers at his throat and flinched away, the steel of betrayal cold at his neck. "No," he stuttered just before the darkness swelled again, because he'd been wrong; Dean _wasn't_ different, he was the same, exactly the same…

* * *

_The claws of a hundred, a thousand, a million legions of the hounds of Hell tore through the magnificent silver wings, shredding the beautiful masterpieces and scattering feathers of lightning and ice around the globe, incinerating into ash throughout the atmosphere to be inhaled by strangers as the Earth opened up to swallow the one who'd dared to go back upon his word, to break a contract, to forsake the terms of a bargain. Then the Adversary of old laughed, a mocking peal of triumph because such had been his design from the beginning, to take down this particular brother by means of his love for his fledgling and Heaven shuddered at the loss, but the demise of one of its most powerful was but the beginning…_

She woke with a startled gasp, the snarls of hounds and the screams of the tortured souls already entrapped in the Pit ringing in her ears and she trembled at the memory of the dream, trembled because she had no idea what it meant because it, just like all the others, was utterly indescribable. She leaned weakly back against the pillows dampened with sweat as her mind whirled with images impossible to decipher: flashes of silver-black-white wings entangled with smoke and tragedy mounted upon steeds of white, black, red, and pale ivory dragging in its wake a trail of destruction never before seen by mankind; and in the center of a whirlwind of chaos and death there were two men, and one who was not quite a man and yet no longer celestial – a golden amulet, a whisper of consent, and crucifixion upon a cross of sin.

_What is wrong with me?_ Nisrine groaned and rubbed at her bleary eyes; maybe she ought to set up a lunch appointment with Rita Flemming over in the Psychiatrics Department, since regular old sleeping pills didn't seem to be doing the trick. With a sigh of resignation, she threw back the sheets and stood, intent on maybe balancing the checkbook or some other hideously boring activity in hopes of feeling drowsy enough to catch at least an hour or two of shuteye. _After all_, she mused somewhat sardonically as she reached out to switch on the bedside lamp, _sick children don't diagnose and cure themselves. _A slight frown creased her brow as her thoughts wandered back to little Jane Doe who still hadn't woken up, despite the odd occurrence from two days ago-

"Nisrine Abunasser."

"_Oh_ God!" She screamed, whirling around to face that man standing by the door of the closet and Nisrine's knees gave out at the billowing robes of green and emerald wings, the color of life and rejuvenation and this was the archangel of healing standing in her bedroom. "Israfil."

"Prophetess," he intoned as a way of greeting, fixing dark eyes upon the terrified woman. "I am Raphael."

_A/N: Oh my. Methinks I need to write something fluffy just to get away from all the angst. I request prompts for one-shots, please (doesn't necessarily have to be fluffy)! Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? _

_But onto more serious matters. Yes, yes, I know…I promised comfort. Two more chapters plus an epilogue on the way! Translations are below; please drop a review!_

_(Enochian) – Ag: no_

_(German) – Bitte: please_

_(Latin) – Haud: no_

_(Sanskrit) – Mitra: friend_

_(Italian) – Vi elemosion: I beg you _

_(Hebrew) – Racham: mercy_

_(Greek) – Eleos: mercy_

_(Arabic) – Iain: why_


	14. Complications

_A/N: I'd like to thank everyone for their reviews (200+, wow!), and take this time to issue a WARNING: A couple of paragraphs in this installment are going to be legitimately rated M. Just thought I'd throw that out there, but I hope you guys still enjoy the chapter! _

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke but these versions of Gabriel, Belial, and Ramiel belong to me_

There are those types of men everyone knows, part smooth-talking Casanova and part rough and tumble Indiana Jones, mixed in with a bit of mischievous charm and devil may care attitude that sends the hearts of women young and old everywhere a flutter. They were the ones in high school with varsity jackets, the heart-melting sports or vintage cars and the pick of any girl in the entire student body, those who made it in the real world with silver tongues and pearl teeth, with their wit and charisma, if nothing else. Envied by their companions and praised by their superiors, they became idealized as champions of the skilled and talented few who spoke, lived, and breathed confidence – it was the name of the game, and these men had mastered it as boys and turned it into a fine art that defined nearly every angle of their existence

Equally loved and loathed, very few of their critics and admirers knew or understood the truth behind these Great Gatsby figures, of how they carried and performed the act so very convincingly that sometimes even they believed it themselves, believed that a grin and flattering word could fix anything, even the terrible emptiness some of them held deep within; for others it was the fear of failure because all knew that the higher they climbed, the further the fall. When faced with real crises and disaster, the charm withered like a dying flower and each became as mute and helpless as everyone else, for while it was possible to fool the human mind and sense of perception (and even oneself), no veneer held fast against the crushing wave of tragedy and despair.

_It has to be broken in three places or else it might tear through the skin or puncture a lung. Hang on, Cas. It'll be over soon. Just one more._

Dean was gritting his teeth together that his jaw was beginning to ache and it seriously was a wonder his molars weren't cracking apart because goddamn it, this _sucked_. If he'd thought hearing an angel's true voice was bad, _this_ – listening to Castiel shrieking in a dozen different languages as he pleaded and gasped for breath – this was much worse. _We're helping him. This is for his own good. Cas will understand. _Yeah, and Lucifer would miraculously see the error of his ways and put himself in the time out corner for the rest of eternity, and then he and Sam would settle down with nice girls, move into suburbia and join the PTA. _Like hell._

"Easy there, it'll be over soon," he murmured to no one in particular, because Sam didn't look like he was focusing upon anything other than the grueling task set before him in the form of a thrashing nearly fallen angel, and Cas didn't seem capable of listening to anything. "Breathe, just breathe." And it was almost more of a reminder to himself; the angel was definitely going to have even more bruises from where the hunter was holding him back so tightly, but all Dean could do was set his jaw, eyes fixed firmly on the ceiling, and pray for Cas to understand as Sam, brow knit together and face contorted in a pained expression the elder Winchester had only seen once before, in a small chapel and bathed with the unholy light signaling Lucifer's eminent ascent-

_Crack._

Castiel went limp against him with the third hard strike of the heel of Sam's palm against his clavicle, chest heaving with sobs and gasps of air dragged up from the gut that displayed raw pain untainted by embarrassment or restraint. The younger Winchester snatched his hand away as if burned and Dean could see the rapid up and down bob of the other's Adam's apple, could see the glistening of tears that Sam wasn't trying to hide and his heart sunk because he'd only been trying to protect both his friend and his brother, was that too freakin' much to ask for?

"Dean…" It was a whisper, barely more than an exhalation of air, a moan resounding with something Dean couldn't discern and he swore, quiet and full of self-loathing as he gently tipped Castiel's head back to check his pulse –

-and Cas _flinched_ away from him.

He could've endured a fist in the face from Sammy a thousand times over, could handle getting pummeled into the dirt by stunt double demons all around; hell, he'd even stared the Devil in the eye and dared the son of a bitch to waste him – and none of it ploughed into him with more forceful or sickening realization than a creature of righteousness jerking away from his touch with a soft cry of fear, voice trembling with the sting betrayal. He'd even turned the little brother he swore to protect into isolation and drove him to siding with a demon because that was the only way Sammy felt worth something, he'd landed the closest father figure he had into a wheelchair, and wasn't this just the icing on top of the cake of failure? Numbly, all he could do was sit there with an armful of now apparently unconscious angel who'd done more with one simple flinch than forty years in Hell or all of Heaven's persuasion could ever manage. After all, it was only the simplest and most straightforward way of saying that Dean Winchester was so hopeless of a fuck up that he couldn't even handle not turning everything he touched into ash or dust or a broken heap of ragged edges that would never mend.

"We-" Sam cleared his throat abruptly and bent his shaggy head, swiping swiftly at his face with the back of his hand. "We should…" he gestured at the bruises already beginning to form along Castiel's collarbone, now broken and mangled under the skin, standing so quickly he almost tripped over his own feet in his haste to move away. "I'll go get…get the gauze so we can…"

_Can fix the mess I made._ Castiel was a dead weight against him as Dean slowly maneuvered out from where he'd been sitting against the headboard and instead propped the angel there in his place, aiming to be as gentle as possible with fumbling fingers and hands heavy with guilt. _I'm sorry, Cas. _The IV snagged abruptly on a rumpled section of the sheet and the hunter caught it with a lurch of fear turning his stomach, remembering the way Castiel had screamed bloody murder the first time they'd touched the needle to his skin, a pinprick and a flash of pain next to the other countless needle scars, and he was perfectly fine with not having to do a repeat again, thanks.

"Dean?" His head snapped up, eyes tearing away from aforementioned scars and then there was Sam and a bundle of gauze nearly hidden in the palm of his hand. "Can you or should I…um…"

It was almost funny, because the last time he'd witnessed Sam so speechless had been close to twenty-five years ago, when the kid was still learning how to talk, because Sam always had _something_ to say, some useless fact to spout off about starving kids in Africa or this weird sigil and that potential case in Bumfuck, mid-Western USA. Keyword being _almost_, since laughter was pretty fucking far from his mind at this point in time. "Give it to me, Sammy," he heard his own voice saying, watched as his hand stretched outward for the gauze because it was painfully clear that Sam was _this close_ to having a guilt-ridden, nervous breakdown and Dean had always tried to best to do right by his brother no matter how many corners it meant having to cut or how much it _hurt_, and he wasn't about to stop now.

Nearly half an hour, clumsy butterfingers, and a half-decent splint later, Dean was wrenching open the motel room door and stomping out into the parking lot with barely a backwards glance, Alastiar's oily voice ringing in his head – _Good boy Dean, make them squeal and sing, make them scream for mercy…yes, I do think I'll like you _– and seeing nothing as he stumbled toward the car in a haze, needing to get away from the friend he'd let down in the most terrible of ways.

"_I need your help…because you are the only one who will help me. Please." _

So focused was the hunter in making a less than graceful yet hasty, desolate retreat that he failed to catch glimpse of the imprint of an invisible paw in the mud, failed to see the silk handkerchief that once might have been white drifting to the parking lot's gravel surface, failed to hear a hellhound's low whine of satisfaction and relief of having found its prey.

Malthus stepped forward cautiously, sniffing the air again for good measure and the hellhound cocked its head slightly, the dark hollows that served as eyes following the Impala as it roared out into the road and away from the motel in apparent escape. Prince Belial would be pleased with this turn of events, he was sure of it.

And so it was in the end that everyone saw how seldom those blessed with great confidence had the courage or the self-assurance to endure, to press forward, and continue on. Funny how things turned out that way, wasn't it?

* * *

She had never been one easily rendered speechless; no, it took a great deal to rattle or stun the usually levelheaded and unflappable Head of Pediatrics. Her ability to stay calm in a crisis was partly what made her such a successful physician because _someone_ had to stay strong when telling grief-stricken parents that their baby was going to or had already passed away, and perhaps a part of that came from becoming very well acquainted with death at an early age, but then again, how else was one supposed to react when growing up surrounded by all the snipers and bombs and rockets of civil war-torn Beirut? She'd already resolved as a child to not to deign to become the victim, to never be the victim and as a result, Nisrine Abunasser was a resolute pillar of strength and composure in the eye of any tempest. She was a comforting presence to the sick without discrimination, a mother to those who had none, a soothing voice in the storm with the right words for every occasion.

But as of right now, backed up against her dresser at stupid o'clock in the morning in a knee-length chemise and staring at the stranger in her bedroom, all she could manage was a weak "_What_?"

"Prophetess," the man…angel…_whatever_ said flatly, meeting her gaze squarely. "You are a channel for the vision of Heaven's will and have been chosen as a vessel for one of the most invaluable members of the Host."

_I'm a…what?_ Her brain scrambled for a reasonable explanation, because while she'd never been the most devout keeper of the faith (working twenty hour days didn't nearly leave her enough time to sleep or even breathe much less pray five times a day) but she was a good person; she helped others for a living and gave to the poor regularly, fasted during the month of Ramadan and professed the Shahadah (_There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet)_. So what if she hadn't yet been to Mecca? She was only thirty-four, give a girl a break. And since when did women start becoming prophets anyway? As far as she knew, the Muslim faith, like every other old time organized religion, was one of patriarchy. "A _vessel?_"

"Your blood intricately links your body to the angel of joy and true vision, and you are to stand as Ramiel's true receptacle for the battle at the End of all Ages."

Nisrine blinked, mind whirling. _True receptacle? As opposed to a false container? _The guy could have as well have been speaking Swahili or gibberish, because what the ever-loving fuck did that mean?

_Snap._

Or maybe it wasn't a snap of the fingers, but it was audible enough to Nisrine's ears and in her mind; it sounded like a cracking tree branch or the sharp break of a bone and it felt like someone hooking a dead weight around her middle and jerking her out stomach, liver, and spleen out of her abdomen. It felt like someone was simultaneously trying to squeeze her skull into the thickness of a pancake and giving her brain freeze at the same time because she couldn't _focus_ on what the hell was going on. Her ears rung with dead silence and the beat of her own pulse as she flew through time and space before touching down unsteadily with her bare feet on cold linoleum and breath wheezing in her lungs.

And of course, Mr. Cryptic Stranger Who May or May Not be an Archangel was standing there, arms folded across his chest and _goddamn it_, angel or not, Nisrine really wanted to clock him a good one, because as the world finally stopped spinning and she straightened with some semblance of control over her kinesthetic and vestibular senses, she found herself standing in the middle of the Pediatrics Ward in nothing but her freakin' cotton nightgown. _What the hell is going on?_

"Come."

Nisrine had never been good at obeying the orders of any man, just ask her father, three older brothers, and a slew of ex-boyfriends who'd all deemed her too headstrong for her own good, and so call it force of habit but she planted her heels, crossed her own arms and defiantly lifted her chin. But the "screw you" died on her lips when she saw where the man was walking, the room he was headed toward and that strange maternal instinct flared again, thrumming quietly but in a strong, steady, downright dangerous rhythm under the surface. It was the one that constantly reminded her of her ticking biological clock, the same one that made her rescue stray cats and dogs when she was a little girl, and the one that hammered out a tempo of _don't __**touch**__ my patients_. "You-" Five long, rapid paces brought her sliding swiftly between the self-professed archangel of healing and the door to Jane Doe's room. She glared, daring him. "You leave my patient _alone_."

He cast the woman a fleeting glance before, with a flick of his hand, the archangel temporarily rearranged the molecules of wooden framework and pushed the vessel into the room without a single touch, driving her back against the wall and pinning her in place. As she flailed and struggled mutely, the archangel turned to the slight form of the little girl lying in the hospital bed, still and unmoving. "Sister."There was no reply and the archangel ventured closer, as close as the invisible and impenetrable barrier carefully formed by Gabriel's hand would allow. "Ramiel, awaken."

It was a command and a request rolled into one but the entreating order still elicited no response or movement and at that, electricity crackled throughout the air as sparks struck the sigil and the power of one brother struggling over another filled the room, one son of sanctified flame against the other. Nisrine's eyes grew wide in speechless astonishment; she gasped silently as she watched positive and negative charged particles split in two and collide against the stronger covalent bond of hydrogen and oxygen, spinning rapidly through space in attempts to reverse polarity and admit the archangel of healing into the sphere of the Herald's protection.

"_Raphael."_

The voice was unheard by the ears of mere mortals and it burned against Nisrine's eardrums like a flaming breath of air, whispering secrets indiscernible to those who sought them, and it continued to speak – inquiry, reproach, and a firm send-off – as Jane Doe sat up with fluid grace, brown eyes echoing with ages past and the promise of the future to come. At that moment she was not a little girl in a flimsy hospital gown far too large for her thin frame or a nameless patient among many; no, she was authority and kindness, both a younger sister well adored and a mother bestowing firm but gentle understanding upon all.

"You've been gravely weakened, sister." Raphael rumbled, a displeased whirlwind sweeping through a dry, barren desert. "Don't force my hand. You _will_ return to Heaven." The winds of a raging tempest swelled into a mighty hurricane within the small private room, whipping and lashing at every available surface as if reaching for something, fingers determined to pluck every single stationary object from its place and toss it through space up to the sky, upwards to touched the stars and perhaps even reach Heaven.

Jane Doe's eyes narrowed.

Nisrine cringed as much as she could and hid her eyes in the crook of her arm and just waited for the entire building to come crashing down around all of their ears because that was what it sounded like. _I'm going to die. I'm going to die and there are so many things I won't have ever done. _Her heart sunk. She'd never been to Paris, never found a man worthy of her time or her heart; after years of looking after the precious darlings of others, she would never conceive or bear or hold a child of her own. And _shit, _she never did make that pilgrimage to Mecca either. _Allaahu Akbar, ashhadu Allah ilaaha illa-Lah…_

Then, just like that, with all the regrets and wishes and hopes that now would never come to fruition still swirling around in her mind, everything stopped and went still, literally frozen in time.

She looked up, limbs suddenly free again and the man (_Raphael_) was gone, but then again Nisrine didn't think she would've noticed even if he put on a top hat, vaulted on top of the serving tray attached to the table and did a tap dance, because little Jane Doe – _Ramiel,_ her mind supplied now, _Ramiel_ – was staring straight at her. And as much as Nisrine wanted to look away, she couldn't. When the angel of joy and true vision stared you in the eye, you _didn't_ look away because besides the fact that something that wasn't human was effortlessly stripping away your skin-flesh-bones to gaze openly upon your soul with just a _look_, it was so much more than that.

_Let those who have eyes, let them see._

The woman's irises contracted and then expanded, pupils full-blown as she looked and saw the creation of the galaxies and the birth of time, the start of everything that had ever come into existence through the Father's hands and the end of everything that went the same way; she saw the hellfire and brimstone raining down upon the entirety of humanity because the Lord promised to never again end the world with floodwaters; she saw Life and Death as opposites of the same whole working endlessly, constantly, and in unity. With one look, the angel Ramiel reached out and opened the eyes of her vessel's soul, opened them to the ever-stretching chronicle of the past and the many paths that led forward into thousands of possible futures, each alterable by only a single choice; the tiniest waver in a will triggering and bursting forth with countless threads of new fates and fortunes and chance. Nisrine crumpled to the floor with a breathless whimper, shaking uncontrollably with the gravity of the visions and tears streamed down her cheeks as she gasped for air because it was too much to handle, too much to know, too much to have seen in so short of a flash of imagery and dream. Suddenly it all made sense now as the threads wove themselves together into a vision of destruction and despair; it was _Yawm ad-Din _and Armageddon, the Day of Judgment.

She'd just seen the end of the world.

"_You have a choice, Nisrine Abunasser,"_ Ramiel whispered gently, asking permission but not demanding consent at the same time. _"You can help stop it." _This current vessel was weakening and would not withstand the horrors and toil of the inevitable final battle upon Mount Megiddo; the fading little girl would not fare as the angel's true vessel would. _"Will you become my vessel?" _

Nisrine raised a tear-stained face, lifting her eyes to the glory of the angel who was struggling to contain a flaming orb of grace within the little girl's body, the little girl who would burn away soon, burn away like the rest of the world and crumble to a fine grey ash as the minions of the realm Below rose in triumph and dwelled in Hell on Earth forevermore. Choice? What choice? There was no tough decision to be made here.

_Yes. Yes, I will.

* * *

_

Some wondered if the sightless had no vision because they could see further and father, deeper into worlds unknown, and by extension, into the veil beyond death. What did the blind dream of, with their sightless eyes? Perhaps they could see the beginning and the end, the reasons for being, and all that made life worth living to the fullest. Maybe they, like the dead, were privy to a trove of secrets carved out by the plasticity of the brain or possibly even by the finger of God.

They were not. He would know, because he'd already been there before, had stepped into the emptiness of oblivion with not even a shroud of darkness or sense of awareness, and he'd fought it. Fought with the strength he no longer possessed and a will that was practically nothing at all until his grace burst into flame and ignited the barrenness of his soul, stitching his essence back together again and he was brought back into a world of light and hope and faith for the Father that must've been the one to restore his soul.

_The angel Castiel stood before him, a figure of righteousness and holy light, of obedience and cool impassivity and the strength in the name of the Almighty. His wings were white swatches of Heaven's glory, twenty-five feet across; his demeanor calm and his sword polished a burnished steel with the sanctified flame from the mouth of a Mighty and Wrathful God. He was beautiful and mighty, too bright to gaze upon with even blinded eyes for he was an angel of the Lord with no doubts or fears or thoughts of stubborn hunters with hazel green eyes who told him "don't ever change" or told him he was already dead. The angel Castiel was too perfect to exist in a world of sin and he tried to reach out, to urge him away, to warn him of deserting brothers and an absent Father, of a man who would call him 'Cas' and for whom he would forsake everything, who would call him his friend and then turn traitor and set upon him at his weakest. _

Now he knew how the blind felt, what the blind saw, and it was far from death because hallucinations and dreams were real but unreal, like the friendship and trust pieced together by the fragility of hope and lies, both all too easily broken and left behind to rot after the expended usefulness…

_And it hurt to see himself as he used to be; Castiel was dimly aware of the fact that his body was shaking, and it was truly __**his**__ body now, and to own one's own body was to give permission to feel everything that went along with it so he embraced the pain freely, readily, since there was nothing else he possessed or could have anymore. There was no secret, no great unknown, no darkness – the only constant was the pain, and he cradled it to his chest with hands that were being torn to shreds and flayed to the bone, held it like a baby bird with broken wings and it hammered relentlessly against his consciousness, forcefully pushing away all else as it propelled him out of the mass of nightmares and drugged images of a blind man's imaginings – into the heavy weight and wheezing cough, the sharp stab of ice and pounding of pain. The darkness surrounded him still and the pain left him breathless, but able to focus, if only for an instant. _

"Page paid, heeoa, aqlo li rit od ethrazi ol enay."

_The words flowed into him like a stream of peace, the language of his kin of the Host above being spoken in a tongue rough and clumsy, unaccustomed to the words of celestial beings. He recognized that voice though, from where did he remember that tone and timbre? _

"Restel od brin gono aqlo alsro ar heeoa ge bam."

_There was guilt in his voice, the residue of a darkness that stained his soul and Castiel knew him suddenly, knew that this voice belonged to Sam Winchester. The boy with the demon blood. _

"Umplif torzul mirc umadea." Sam gently closed the giant text and set _Enochian: The Language of the Messengers of God_ on the floor where he sat. Castiel's breathing seemed a bit more regular now, slightly more at ease, but a furrow still creased his brow and after a moment of slight hesitance, the younger Winchester leaned forward nervously. He hadn't forgotten what happened the last time the angel was aware of his presence, if the shiner he still bore said anything about it. But Dean had left off to who knew where, and now it was just him. "Castiel?"

The angel's cheeks were flushed an unhealthy red, his skin was hot to the touch and Sam chest tightened in sympathy as he readjusted the ice packs placed strategically around the other's form, careful not to wake him lest there be a repeat performance of last night's disaster. He cast a glance at Castiel's bandaged clavicle, newly broken and set in its proper place. "He didn't want to do it," the younger Winchester found himself blurting out, fingers nervously smoothing out a nonexistent wrinkle at the edge of the comforter. "We had to, Cas. Your bone had healed the wrong way and if we didn't do anything…" he cleared his throat. "You mean a lot to him, Cas. You're his friend. You know that Dean would never hurt you."

_Dean Winchester, Michael's vessel. Dean Winchester, both stubborn man and generous of heart, compassionate and fierce and – _"Dean."

Sam started, blinking in shock at the sound of his brother's name because Castiel hadn't stirred, hadn't opened his eyes, hadn't given any indication that he was awake. But as the younger Winchester waited with baited breath, the angel spoke again, a breathy whisper. "A good man."

"Yeah. Yeah, he is." A lump formed in Sam's throat because well…it was stupid, but of _course_ Dean was a good man. He was Michael's vessel, wasn't he? The Righteous man. And although he wanted to deny it, the one thing Sam perhaps yearned for quietly and privately in the secret recesses of his heart and mind, was a chance to be recognized as the same.

"…Sam?"

He flinched at the sound of his own name and swallowed hard, waiting for the judgment well deserved. "Yeah. I'm here, Cas."

_Sam Winchester, Lucifer's true vessel. Sam Winchester, repentant and whole of soul, pure of heart; a creature of the dust who had been born into sinful nature, but who worked for nothing but the welfare of others and the joy of those he loved. Like his brother, Dean. _

Castiel spoke then, with more forceful strength and authority than he'd ever done before, and Sam found himself having no choice but to believe the affirmation: "You too, Sam." _You too are a__ good man, Sam. You too.

* * *

_

The hospital had been usually quiet for the past couple of days. Medical personnel milled around and went about their everyday jobs; the building buzzed with the regular in and out flow of patients coming for their yearly checkups, filling up prescriptions, or inquiring about the availability of the latest H1N1 vaccine. Flu season was right around the corner and all things considering, Kindred Memorial Medical Center was having a pretty uneventful week. Doctors found the time for a coffee break, a couple of the interns had gone outside for a smoke, and the nurse at the front desk had her head bent studiously over the _New York Times _crossword puzzle, trying to think of the five letter name of a Hungarian cube maker.

Everything was relatively free from disturbance, or as peaceful as a hospital could be. That is, until Kindred Memorial's Medical Center's resident little Jane Doe opened up her doe brown eyes, sat straight up in bed, and screamed to high Heaven.

At first, everyone had been in too much shock to do anything else but stare, all those years of honing lightning-quick judgments, response times, and medical school out the window because it wasn't the plaintive cry of a little girl's confusion or the well-known squall of discomfort, and thank God it wasn't a wild howl of pain – but it was just as heart-wrenching. It was the first time anyone in the small mid-western town's medical center had ever heard the wail of a soul that had been through the fiery destruction and yet lived to tell the tale, much less from the throat of a little girl.

"_Rami! I want RAMI!!" _

And as it was such, the mad rush began: two nurses to shush the child, a squadron of doctors who began running a battery of tests to determine what led to such a spontaneous recovery, and countless interns scurrying everywhere to attempt finding Dr. Abunasser, because Nisrine was _the_ expert at dealing with hysterical patients. No one could find the Head of Pediatrics though, and that certainly was odd because Nisrine never missed a day of work, and several of the nurses had tried calling both her house and cell phone, with no answer. Suzanne, the nurse who worked the graveyard shift on the Pediatrics Ward, mentioned possibly having seen the doctor wearing what looked like a chemise and standing in the middle of the hallway long after Nisrine had gone home, or perhaps she hadn't had enough coffee and liked to be the center of attention with her wild tales.

Luckily though, the girl had quieted down after much cajoling, a big bowl of strawberry ice cream that was devoured with relish, a packet of crayons, and the blank side of an anesthesia consent form and was now humming quietly as she scribbled out a masterpiece of her own design. Five different doctors had already confirmed the patient to be of sound physical health, the only anomaly being that she spoke little for a seven year old girl, and that they attributed to the stressors of waking up in a strange new environment and perhaps even a little bit of posttraumatic stress disorder. After all, the question of what happened to land her at Prowers County Psychiatric Ward was still an unsolved mystery. Specialists, child services, and even a priest had already been called and were on the way, and yet none of this seemed to bother little Jane Doe who still didn't have a name, for when asked, she simply shrugged her skinny shoulders and scribbled harder with the red crayon, pursing her lips in concentration.

Naturally then, when one of the younger nurses entered with a tray of lunch (bologna and cheddar cheese on wheat with a side of sliced peaches and green Jell-O for dessert) and a cheery "whatcha drawin' there, sweetheart?", it had been a bit of a surprise when the little girl raised her head and solemnly replied with two grave words that carried much more gravity than she could muster.

"The End."

Dr. Harrison Tilden from the Psychiatrics Department now sat in front of the young patient, eyebrows furrowed as he inspected the series of drawings of stick people with giant jagged spike-looking scrawls extending from their shoulders and other objects that were unmistakably guns, the majority of the drawing covered in shades of Crayola's brick red, burnt orange, and orange red. The little girl was now sipping the remainder of her Jell-O through a straw, giggling in merriment as she did so and no, the doctor mused before returning his attention to the drawing, she certainly didn't seem to be experiencing any symptoms of psychological trauma. Other than the fact that she'd just spent about three hours drawing several different pictures that all looked like a seven year old's artistic representation of the fields of Gettysburg or the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.

"You think it's ugly."

He glanced up at the gaze that suddenly was far too serious for the little girl's face. "I'm sorry?"

"I know it's not very pretty," came the blunt reply. "But it wasn't pretty in my head, neither."

_In her head…right then, scratch that about no psychological trauma._ The doctor cleared his throat awkwardly and leaned forward. "No, it's…I just don't understand what you were trying to draw…?" he motioned, the universal gesture for someone to jump in and either prolong or complete the conversation, but she didn't seem to understand. Time for a change of tactics. "My name is Harrison, Harry for short," he said cheerfully, offering his hand. "What's yours?"

She took the extended hand, small fingers barely curling around his much larger ones. "Daddy called me his little princess and Mommy called me little missy, but only if I stepped on Fluffy's tail or ate too much candy before dinnertime." The brown eyes narrowed slightly, wondering if the next secret could be divulged to this young, friendly man in the white coat like so many of the others, before the fingers squeezed in apparent confidence. "But Rami called me Joy."

_Well, Joy it is. _"Okay, Joy. Do you know where your parents are?"

"Gone."

Harrison blinked at the matter-of-fact answer, at the nonchalant tone. Oh boy, child services were going to have a ball with this one. "Did they tell you where they were going?"

"No." Joy shook her head firmly, once. "When the monsters came, Daddy told me to hide in the closet, so I did. I waited a long time." Her gaze drifted downward and little fingers played with the edge of the hospital's frayed blanket. "It was dark and cold. I didn't like it." Her arms came up and wrapped tightly around her skinny frame; a shiver shook her shoulders. "I was scared," she whispered, and it was clear that she'd been so for a long time, but big girls didn't get scared so she never said so. For a moment she was not the hospital's resident Jane Doe or latest medical miracle, but simply a little girl reliving what must have been a traumatic experience and Harrison's heart went out to her because he couldn't imagine his little Emma Rose going through something even remotely like what was being described to him. "But I prayed, just like Mommy showed me. I prayed an' then Rami found me."

_That name again. Rami._ The doctor paused and weighed his next words, considering, because as of right now, it sounded like the police were going to have their hands full with this story too, what with the monsters, missing parents, and this mysterious Rami. Was it possible that Joy was a victim of a kidnapping and had developed a dangerous attachment to her captor? _Sounds like Stockholm syndrome. And…_ he sighed heavily. _A rape kit might be necessary as well. _"Who is Rami? Is he a monster, too?"

Harrison was unprepared for the bubble of laughter that escaped the little girl's mouth and burst in the air, a bright giggle full of light and levity. "No, silly. Rami's an angel!"

_Oh, an angel. Why didn't I think of that before.._ "With a shiny golden halo and big white wings?" He pointed at one of the stick figures with the spiky shoulders that…could've been wings? _Eh. Maybe? _If he was wrong, he knew the little girl would correct him in a heartbeat, because his own daughter was like that too. …_No, not __**that**__ one, silly Daddy!_

Joy scooted forward, eager to instruct her audience of one. "No, that's Cas-_tel_. Catseil?" She paused and scrunched her nose in thought. "Cas," she finally decided with a nod of finality, before pointing at a different figure, this one with black scrawls for apparently wings. "Rami's wings aren't white anymore; the mean monster burned them all up a long time ago." When Harrison said nothing in return, the little girl crossed her arms over her chest and half-glared, half-pouted. "But I don't care if they're not white or pretty. Rami took good care of me an' Mommy won't mind 'cause Rami takes good care of Cas, too!"

_Of course._ Rami wasn't and had probably never been external threat; this so-called angel was a manifestation of Joy's mind, a way for her young mind to deal with whatever hell she'd been through, whatever prompted her to draw pictures of stick figures with wings and guns scribbled over with the red of what Harrison was almost certainly positive was supposed to be blood. Rami was the strong personality in this tragic case of apparent dissociative identity disorder, the one who protected Joy and this other imaginary friend named Cas. The doctor resisted the urge to let his head sink into his hands because there was a lot more messed up with this little girl's head then they'd originally thought.

"I'm sure Rami did a fine job," he commented hurriedly, and Joy nodded, satisfied. She sat back and poked idly at the Jell-O with the straw, and both of them watched the gelatin wobble this way and that in silence for a few moments. In fact, it looked a lot like Harrison's mind felt right now, because he sure as hell had no idea what to do with this patient. _Maybe…maybe she wasn't the first? _Or maybe he'd been watching too many crime dramas, but before he could stop himself, the question slipped out. "Joy, who is Cas?"

"Cas is Rami's little brother. He's got pretty blue eyes. See?" She pointed with the end of the straw and indeed, the first stick figure had blue crayoned eyes. "I wanted a little brother too. But Mommy laughed and said 'we'llsee' and then Daddy got Fluffy. I didn't like him much 'cause he meowed a lot. Where's Rami?" she asked suddenly, Jell-O now abandoned, and turning those large inquisitive brown eyes upon him.

"I…" _I'm screwed. _"I'm not sure, Joy." The little girl's brow was crinkling, the corners of her mouth pulling downwards in displeasure, so he hastened to explain. "We didn't find anyone else but you in that hallway. Why were you there?" From the corner of his eye, Harrison caught glimpse of a nurse standing by the door and held up a hand; he knew Joy would stop speaking if another stranger abruptly entered the room. "Did Rami take you there?"

"Yes. We…we went to find Cas." Joy's fingers were fisting in the sheets as she stared intently at the far wall, frown growing even more pronounced in her attempts to recall what had happened. "The monsters took him too," she said suddenly in hushed tones, eyes going wide. "An'…an' the boys with the guns." She made an abortive movement to point at the drawing, the words tumbling out over one another now. "They were there to save him too, 'cause…'cause he's important…'cause Cas is their friend." Slowly, as if in a trance, the little girl raised a hand and pointed her forefinger and thumb in the shape of a gun. _"Bang."_

Harrison frowned. "Joy? What happened next?"

"_Bang."_

"Joy?"

Suddenly her muscles clenched in a spasm; her back arched up and her head was wrenched back as if an invisible hand was pulling her hair, her fingers clenched inward, and her eyes rolled back in her head as she shook uncontrollably, foaming at the mouth. Horrified, Dr. Tilden jumped up, leaping forward to push the patient back down onto the bed- "SHE'S SEIZING!!!"

"He's hurting him!!!" the little girl cried as she convulsed, thrashing against the many hands that were trying to pin her limbs down, screaming out in a voice that wasn't her own in a way that was both terrifying and heartbreaking- "The monster's hurting him!" Tears rolled down her cheeks. "_Stop_ _hurting_ _Cas_!"

* * *

He got back to the motel at half past _I'm too fucking drunk to give a shit_, staggering out of the Impala and bringing with him the unmistakable odor of booze, misery, and _failure_, because although he was sure his blood alcohol content was currently through the roof, Dean Winchester apparently couldn't even get drunk enough to forget _anything_, even when he was really trying his damn hardest to do so (although the complicated question of how both he and the car had gotten back both in one piece was still a mystery to him).

_Why the hell do people get shit-faced, anyway? _Dean tried to jam the key into the doorknob and missed, copper clanking clumsily on bronze. _'Cause drinking a depressant when you're depressed makes sense._ He jabbed at the door again, unsuccessfully trying to unlock it. _Makes sense just like not saying yes, like Cas bein' a friend, like why it has to be me and Sammy and our planet that has to burn 'cause of friggin' dicks. _Oh yeah, all of that made perfect sense. And for a moment he stood there, musing over something about brain cells and dying, over those who were already dead and those who were going to die in a rain of hellfire and flame at the hand of Sammy in a god-awful white suit – _fuck. I'm not drunk enough for this. _Finally, he inserted the key into the lock (turns out it had been upside down the whole time) and opened the door, stumbling into the small room that was rank with the stench of sweat, fear, and impending death.

Or maybe he was drunk. Dean blinked several times to stave off the fuzziness in his head, because he was sure that, when he left (_ran, _a voice that sounded too much like Alastair's mocked gleefully, _ran like a scared little boy_) Sam hadn't been sitting bedside keeping vigil with a pained and yet simultaneously strange look of peace on his face.

Or maybe he was just cross-eyed it was dull acceptance he saw, a look he was very sure mirrored his own.

Sam glanced up then, features rearranging into one of his epic and patented bitchfaces; this one was a mix between the 'where the HELL were you when we needed you, you idiot' one that Dean had learned way back when Sammy had been a teenager with emo issues and a chip on his shoulder the sizes of Stonehenge, and the 'I think we need to share and care and braid each other's hair' one that teetered dangerously on the verge of being in chick flick zone. But for all of the younger Winchester's infamous inappropriate girlishness at times, Sam had the good sense not to ask where his brother had been as the other moved past, and Dean didn't supply an answer.

He shucked his jacket and tossed the article of clothing on the other bed, kicking off his boots on his way to the bathroom while staring doggedly ahead because he didn't need to see the pale, still figure tucked carefully into the other bed on his uninjured side, didn't need to know how much Castiel's condition had deteriorated in two short hours (or however long he'd been gone), didn't want to be reminded of the clusterfuck they'd landed themselves into this time, one that didn't have a cheat sheet or owners manual saying exactly how to fix an angel of the Lord.

But that was just as well, because when the bathroom door slammed and he leaned his weight against the cracked ceramic sink, Dean gazed blankly at his reflection in the mirror and couldn't see anything besides the dead eyes of a man who had been pushed as far as he could go, a man who was at the end of his rope and couldn't tie a knot because it was fraying and unraveling under the weight of the end of the freakin' world itself. His reflection was the look on Sam's face when his older brother called him a monster; it was the blank stare of a fallen angel from behind a pile of absinthe and amphetamines and Vicodin to chase away the emptiness; it was the disbelief on Jesse's face when two strangers and a demon possessing his birth mother came to tell him he was the Antichrist.

_Bzzzzz._

His knees shook at the unexpected noise and his fingers instinctively tightened on the edges of the sink but that must've not been very tight either or he must've blacked out because the next thing he knew, he was sitting on the floor, back against the bathtub and for some reason, gazing blearily at the cell phone sitting on the ugly tile beside him. It vibrated once, twice, and then again, insistently, rattling against the floor: ten new messages. _Christ. Really, Sammy? _Well, the bar he'd sought refuge in while attempting to drink everything away didn't have reception, so it was no surprise that everything was flooding his inbox now. Hazily, Dean reached out with the clumsy fingers and punched at random buttons, squinting at the too-small text that flashed across the screen.

_Cas is awake. _Delete.

_He's in a lot of pain. I think he's getting worse. _Delete.

_Should I up the morphine? _Delete.

_Dean, answer your damn phone!_ Delete.

_He's asking for you. _Dean's thumb hovered over the delete button on that one because as stupid as it was, a spark of hope flared at the words; maybe Cas didn't hate him after all, maybe they'd actually get through this one alive, maybe there was even a _Cas says he forgives you _in the remaining messages somewhere- "DEAN!!"

It was pure instinct.

He might have been drunk, but he knew that tone of Sam's voice, had heard the fear and desperation coloring his kid brother's frantic shout only a couple of times before and each time, it was a knife to the gut. Dean would be damned (again, he supposed) if anything got in between him and the other when Sammy yelled out for him like that, be it demon or angel or lack of motor coordination, and he barreled out of the bathroom, mind clear and sharp enough to put a bullet in the monster that was…that was…

_Shit. _

"Dean, help me!" Sam yelled over his shoulder as he grappled with the angel, and this wasn't any Jacob wrestling with nameless angel bozo number forty-three type deal – Cas was having a full out convulsive fit, a grand mal complete with wild thrashings of his limbs as muscles contorted and twitched at alarming speeds and odd angels. The cords in his neck stood out as his head jerked and he bucked a good half a foot off the bed with considerable strength for someone in his condition, eyes moving furiously under closed lids and from his throat came a sound Dean could only ever remember being ripped from his own throat in one long, continuous choking gasp during the thirty years he spent getting torn apart in Hell, a gasp he knew would soon turn into a full-fledged howl of pain.

The belt was unbuckled and off from around his waist in less than an instant and Sam understood, narrowly ducking one of the flailing fists that swung into the bedside lamp instead, sending it crashing it to the floor; with a whisper of apology and for forgiveness, the younger Winchester used his height and weight advantage to pin Castiel's lower body to the bed, one arm firmly pressed against the angel's sternum and the other reluctantly holding him down against the mattress as Dean wedged the belt between Castiel's locking jaws and grinding teeth. The angel continued to jerk spastically though, biting down upon the leather so hard that the corners of his mouth began to bleed, exhaling a low, pitiful moan.

"C'mon Cas, don't do this, c'mon…" Dean's voice was strained, his face grey and not just from the dimmed lighting in the room; his fingers met the wetness of tears on Castiel's cheeks as the angel's motions became more subdued under the stronger forces holding him down – _shit, his fever's too high _– and Dean nodded at his brother, a quick inclination of his head. _That's enough. Let him go. _Sam pulled away quickly and they moved to handle one shoulder each, gently easing their friend onto his stomach this time, knowing the torment the seizure must have placed on his back, moving him inch by inch. "Easy, easy," Dean muttered more to himself than anyone else, his own grip slippery with his own sweat and Castiel's tears, salty distress and guilt mingling together as one.

They'd gotten him onto his side, Sam propping the limp body that was more skin and bone than actual human up slightly against his own side – and Dean wondered what had happened in his absence, because the last time they tried something like that, the shit met the fan and became the best of friends – when a tremor passed through Castiel's woefully wasted frame. Dean knew he would rather wait for an hour and let his fingers grow stiff and legs go numb than go through a repeat of what just happened, so he paused, motioning for Sam to do the same as they waited for the residual shaking to subside.

It didn't.

The angel's abused back arched up and away from Sam with a full-throated scream at the sky, eyes snapping open like Pamela's after she lost hers. One hand shot upwards and fingers gripped tightly around Dean's neck, dragging him downwards with so much speed and urgency that the hunter lost footing and pitched forward, falling and spiraling madly down into Castiel's purple-black gaze full of everything he couldn't see-

_-and he lay there, gasping, panting for breath and trying to ride out the unspeakable scorch of exploding stars inside his skull, his eyes caught sight of the man standing at the door, pinprick pupils contracting and expanding, latching upon the carefully ironed and pressed slacks with tapered seams and moving up to the starched white collared shirt and silken tie. _

_Dean froze in terror as a white handkerchief extended slowly toward his face, carefully wiping through the trails of blood that seeped sluggishly from his eyes as Belial, High Prince of Hell of and Lord of lust smirked down at him, the predator gazing down upon his helpless and vulnerable prey at the end of a chase that had already lasted thousands, millions, billions of years. "Well hello there, my little soiled dove." _

_The handkerchief was shoved in between his teeth and jerked tightly then; he tasted iron on his tongue and terror pounded out a sharp, jerky staccato against his ribs. Instinctively, the hunter knew that it was not his own fear, because every living being alive knew the flavor of its own fear, knew the particular rush of adrenaline and taste of bile and tightening of muscles as the sympathetic nervous system kicked into overdrive, and this wasn't his. It was one much more attuned to the demon's presence and besides, when the fuck did Belial start getting a hard on for him? No, Dean realized with a start and terrible, sinking dread – this was the keen and acrid taste of a being usually unused to feeling anything at all – this was Castiel's fear streaming through his consciousness and shrieking at a mad, frenzied pitch, screaming out to run, run, RUN. _

"_How about this- you watch, while I fuck him!" _

_He couldn't move though, could twitch a muscle and Belial's words from so long ago shot through his memory as he lay there, trapped in Castiel's mind and body as Belial's fingers closed around the waistband of the mental asylum's standard issue baggy drawstring pants and felt the terror reaching a pinnacle nigh unreachable by the senses of mere man alone, felt the descending spiral into self-loathing as fast and rough and painful as the Lord of lust making good on his promise to draw blood and ravage, to destroy and take until there was nothing left. And as the pain spiked through him again and again and again, Dean felt Castiel's soul flicker and curl into a hard knot of self-hatred and disgust, for who would ever care to touch a creature so fallen and defiled now? _

"Gabriel?" The huff of breath puffed against his face and Castiel's voice was a timid whisper, hardly daring to hope but laced with the fear of rejection because obviously he knew what the other had just borne witness to and so now he wordlessly pleaded forgiveness for his filthiness from his brother. "Dean?" From his friend.

– and he ran.

Tearing away from Castiel's desperate hold, Dean burst out of the motel room and vomited a stomachful of beer and cheap whiskey out onto the gravel, retching and gagging and when there was nothing left to expel he dropped to his hands and knees, tears streaming down his face and dry heaving in vain attempts to strip away the horrifying nightmare he'd just experienced. _Oh, God. Fucking hell. Christ Almighty…Cas, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

* * *

_

A flutter of torn wings against the currents of the wind, a whisper of a joyous song that never ceased, and he read the newcomer's grace with ease. "Hello, sister."

"Brother." She stepped gracefully up beside him on the furthermost ridge of the precipice, dark brown eyes turned toward the ocean as the grey ones of the archangel's vessel were also.

"Thou hast found and taken thine true vessel." A simple observation, weighed down with indescribable importance.

"Yes." The wind blew inland from the sea, whipping a cotton chemise about the slender figure of a woman with cappuccino colored skin and a fall of loose raven hair that waved in the breeze. "I thank you for your temporary measures of protection. My time has not yet come."

"And hast mine, Ramiel?" The man turned to face his companion, features world-weary and haggard. Anyone else would have merely seen a man who'd drunk too much of the bitter vinegar of life, but the woman's brown eyes pierced deeper, and even she started at what she found: uncertainty and fear. "Thou hast seen it, hast thou not?"

Ramiel hesitated, and put a comforting hand on the other's shoulder. "I have seen many things, Herald. The beginning and the end, the pacts and sacrifices, the fallen and the risen. I have seen many things." The words danced in the air, a whisper of promise and constancy that would never change in a world where battles were to be won and lost at the cost of both enemy and kin – _I have seen many things. _

"And Castiel?" There was a tremble in the voice that spoke for the Lord, barely perceptible, but there. "Tell me what thou hast seen of our brother."

"Castiel's mind and soul has already been twisted by the Deceiver's hand, yet now he mistakenly believes himself to have been taken by the hand of evil." And here the sorrow swelled, here the tears welled in the archangel's eyes and the angel of joy touched her brother's face gently, kindly, truthfully. "He needs his brother, Gabriel. Go to him."

_A/N: Okay. Well…hmm. I think I ran into a rough spot about halfway through the chapter, and there was one other part that was particularly difficult to write, but I really hope I didn't offend anyone and if I did, many sincere apologies. I'd like to say a big thank you to those who pitched their ideas; I'm looking into some of them and fleshing out possible outlines, and I'll let you guys know as soon as I decide on one. Translations of Enochian phrases are below; please leave a review!_

_Page paid, heeoa, aqlo li rit od etharzi ole nay: Rest always, son of light, in the mercy and peace of the Lord_

_Restel od brin gono aqlo alsro ar heeoa ge bam: That you may praise him and have faith in the promise that of son of light is not forgotten_

_Umplife torzul mirc umadea: Our strength shall rise upon strong towers _


	15. Crucified

_A/N: I'm truly blessed to have such committed, intelligent, and mature readers; thank you, all of you, for your reassurances and reviews. Well, here we are, at the last chapter. What a roller coaster ride it has been! Don't worry; there'll be an epilogue. Enjoy! _

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke but these versions of Gabriel, Belial, and Ramiel belong to me_

They always said that time was a relative thing: sit next to a pretty girl and an hour felt like a minute, but put your hand on a hot stove for minute and that, ladies and gentlemen, felt like a freakin' hour. It was viscous and ever-flowing, crawling on forever and forever (amen) like the garbled rant of an angry, emotional drunk or the tiresome narrative of an author who got paid by the word and constantly engaged in dangerous flirtation with purple prose.

Time was relative, and didn't Dean Winchester know it. Thirty years on Earth with a break in between for a torturous forty in Hell had taught him a bit about the absence of standards of absolute and universal application when talking about the indefinite continuation of existence. Life was precious, every single second of it, because it was true how no one really knew what they had until it was gone – he never knew how to appreciate every single breath of real air not saturated with ash and sweat and blood until he had a hellhound's claws embedded in his chest and meat hooks ripping through his soul down Below; he didn't know just how damn much he loved his little brother until he saw Sammy being used as nothing but a suit for the Devil himself.

Dean didn't know how lucky and grateful he was to have an angel on his side in the midst of this clusterfuck of an Apocalypse until said angel had been reduced to scorch marks on concrete floor by his dick brothers, until he saw his friend transformed into a sex-crazed junkie in a potential future that seemed far too close for comfort, until Castiel was shaking and screaming and sightless in a motel room with nothing but nightmares and fevered hallucinations to fill up the painful moments of both sleep and wakefulness.

_Belial's eyes glinted with savage, animalistic delight as he took apart an angel of the Lord with the carnal, sinful ways of the flesh and Dean could hear his own voice choking around the gag mingled with Castiel's strangled sobs – broken and hoarse, pleading screams that eventually died down to pathetic whimpers, and then into defeated silence as the sadistic brutality continued without end. The demon's voice was an oozing murmur of poisonous lechery, slithering into all the cracks of a soul that would soon be shattered by self-hatred and loathing and utter disgust: "That's it, dear little Cas…don't fight it pet, enjoy it…"_

He had no idea how long he stayed there, breathing raggedly with his eyes squeezed tightly shut, the gravel biting into the palms of his hands and knees of his jeans, trying to keep the bile from rising up and hitting the back of his throat as the unbidden and unwelcome images played over and over again in his brain, like a broken reel of film. It could've been mere minutes or it could've been hours for all Dean cared and as of right now he _didn't_ give a flying fuck, thank you very much.

"Alright there, old sport?"

_Oh HELL no. _His head snapped to the side so fast that the hunter swore he heard the distinct _'crack'_ indicative of whiplash and there he was, the shameless Lord of lust himself in all his glory, leaning casually against the side of the sleek black Bentley that had pulled up out of nowhere, flicking a speck of imaginary dust away from an obsidian three-piece suit. "Looking a bit peaky there, Winchester," Belial commented glibly but Dean barely heard him, barely heard anything above the sudden roaring in his ears and with a roar that sounded nearly inhuman, he lunged and barreled straight into the demon, bringing both of them to the ground, hard.

"Whoa, easy there." The Second Prince of Hell was laughing. The dirty pervert was _laughing._ "No foreplay, Deano?"

Dean had nearly broken his hand on an angel's jaw once, but luckily demons were just as easily breakable as their vessels were and the hunter's flying fist smashed cartilage with the first blow, the type of punch where not only the shoulder, but one's entire body twisted with its force, the type that sent blood gushing in a torrent, the type that screamed _I'm going to murder you._ "You sick son of a bitch," he growled, grabbing the prick's suit and hauling him off the gravel – "You fucking BASTARD."

Belial blinked, unimpressed and nonplussed, managing to look surprisingly cool and cocky even with blood dripping down his chin and staining his no-longer immaculate suit. "Really, is that all you can manage? The whole growling and threatening routine _is_ getting a bit old." There was the familiar snatch of breath from bronchi as Dean found himself airborne for all of one instant before getting slammed back against the cold, unforgiving metal of the Bentley, winded and glaring upwards defiantly as Belial stood and ran a manicured finger along the bridge of his nose, pulling together cartilage into a perfectly straight downward angle. "All bark and no bite."

"_Fuck_ you_-_"

"Ah-ah," The demon tut-tutted, wagging a finger disapprovingly before plucking out an all too familiar handkerchief out of his pocket and dabbing at the blood on his face. "I've told you before boy, you're not my type." Belial smirked, a confident twisting of a corner of the mouth and it was, Dean noticed with a sick twinge in his stomach, the same smug leer twisting the other's face when pinning Castiel to the rickety cot and- "Besides," the lips parted to admit entrance to the end of a cigarette: inhale-exhale. "Don't think I didn't catch you groveling there on the ground." Slow and steady inhale; the paper glowed and shriveled. "So…" Belial stooped in a strangely graceful movement, crouching until he was eye level with the seething hunter sitting pinned against the car. "Who were you on your knees for, hmm?" His voice dropped to a low and taunting tone. "Who were you playing bitch to?"

He didn't cough or turn his head, didn't even bat an eyelash at the cloud of smoke blown directly into his face and for the first time since he crawled up out of his own grave and inhaled a lungful of sweet oxygen, Dean allowed himself to stare a demon full in the face and feel not shades of fear or varying degrees of loathing, but pure and simple unadulterated hate. "Probably the same one who's holding your leash…_bitch_."

_That_ certainly hit a nerve somewhere, because although the smirk stayed, it now looked more painted on than anything and the demon's left eye twitched – barely noticeable, but Dean caught it with a strange surge of triumph – as an expression of mock affront covered up the slip in the other's veneer of easy-going nonchalance. "Silver tongue indeed," Belial murmured, sitting back on his haunches. "I see why Alastiar liked you best, the old sod. Cheeky, and with absolutely no regard for manners." He frowned. "A bit too forward for me; you see, I like them sweet and innocent." The emerald gaze flickered over to the motel door that was still slightly cracked and practically glowed with feral lust. "I suppose I'll just have to let myself in."

"You-" Dean pulled against his invisible restraints so hard that he actually broke _through_ them – sort of, anyway – twisting his upper body forward while his legs still stayed firmly cemented to the pavement, fingers once again twisting in the fine silk of the other's suit and jerking him forward so the bastard could feel the fire in the hunter's glare, could feel the darkness Dean had learned how to emit back in Hell, could see how dead serious he was. "You make another move toward that room," he hissed, venom and rage twisted together into a deadly whisper, "and I swear to God, you'll be the one on your knees in front of an archangel."

It was a threat, and probably an innocuous one at that, but it sounded frighteningly like a promise of death, of no regrets, of consent. _I'll say yes, _the Righteous Man screamed without words, but it was audible and louder than a crack of thunder in the murderous furrow of his brow, in the sharp angle of his clenched jaw, in the way his eyes could've shattered steel and stone. _Right here, and right now. I'll say yes. _

Belial the Lord of lust, infamous Second Prince of Hell, and terror of every demon (and a good many angels) save for the Morning Star stared. Speechless.

It wasn't because this pathetic little suit of meat and bones fired up by a soul that was more patchwork art project than whole had just broken free from his hold (the earlier altercation with Ramiel had taken more out of him than the demon wished to admit) or being shocked into some newfound respect for the sad little man. At his prime, he could squash the little snot with less effort than it took to lift his little finger. No, it was due to the fact that in the fierce lines of the hunter's face and in the flashing of his eyes, the fallen angel turned demon saw the likeness of Gabriel, _the strength of God_, and protective older brother to his young fledgling. This was the Righteous Man who had broken the first seal, had endured the fires of Hell, who would lay down his life for a friend.

He could see why Dean Winchester was the chosen vessel for Michael, the General of the Host, for he whose name had been the battle cry of the sons of righteousness in the Battle for the Throne, _who is like God_. And although Belial had been a seraph both terrible and mighty, even the fiercest soldier trembled before his Commander; even the most powerful demon's authority withered in the presence of such Light.

But it wasn't as if such weakness had to be put on display for the enemy to see. "Aren't we feisty?" Belial drawled with more mockery than he felt, pulling away with ease after the initial shock. He reached out and patted Dean's head with a condescending smile, his motions slow and cautious. "I know you like to watch when you can't get some yourself, but didn't I tell you I would save you a front row seat?"

Dean jerked away from the gesture, the only thing stopping him from spitting out the big 'yes' was the slight hesitation he could read in the normally suave demon's composure, the uncertainty and lack of rhetoric in Belial's speech. "I'd rather not watch the rerun," he spat viciously and _there_, there was the confusion in the other's countenance, rarely shown because since when was Lucifer's second in command not in the know? _Is it possible that…_ He didn't want to hope, didn't want to assume because he'd already made an ass out of himself enough times already, and-

-and Belial was reaching out with two fingers in a manner that was too weirdly familiar because seriously, what was with these dicks in invading his brain? What, were his memories on TiVo or something for their amusement?

_This time he wasn't riding around in Castiel's meatsuit or feeling the angel's anguished terror and yet somehow this was much worse; standing in the corner of the room in his own body, a less than corporeal form that he couldn't command into moving as Belial strode casually into the room and violated an angel of the Lord in the worst way possible. Dean wanted to look away but literally couldn't, his eyelids were peeled back and his head kept still by who knew what…so he watched. _

_Biting down on his tongue so hard that he tasted iron in his mouth, hands clenched into shaking fists, eyes burning and brimming with tears at the heartrending images, he watched and listened to Castiel screaming himself hoarse until he could scream no more, begging for an end, an end that was not forthcoming. But that wasn't the worst part, because apparently the Lord of lust wasn't yet through and as the bastard geared up for round two (or twenty, or two hundred) Castiel raised his head and Dean found himself staring into the angel's tear-streaked face, into the eyes that were still bluer than blue but now shattered. "Dean," his friend croaked, reaching out one shaking hand, silently pleading for help and salvation. "__**Dean**__." _

"_Tsk._ I'm offended." Belial stood fluidly, a fine sneer of disgust on his face. "Surely you've popped enough cherries to know that was far too vanilla for my tastes. Where were all the toys? And the gag?" He scoffed, a nineteenth century aristocrat turning his nose up at the sight of a dirty street urchin, the Lord of lust dismissing an amateur homemade porn movie. "Not my style." Withdrawing the cigarette from his lips, he stubbed out the burning end on his vessel's tongue and dropped the butt to the ground, flashing the hunter a rakish grin. "Even in his drug-induced hallucinations, little Castiel is terribly innocent, no? There'll be much more screaming on opening night." He bent down and leaned in close, breath hot upon his captive's ear. "_I guarantee it._"

"You're a fucking _liar_."

An eyebrow cocked, incredulously. "Never knew you had such a kink for voyeurism, old sport. Sorry to disappoint, but this little sneak peek of yours isn't even scratching the surface of what I've got planned for my pet. So while I am a bastard, I haven't quite gotten to the fucking part." Belial absent-mindedly tousled the hunter's hair like the fond owner of a stubbornly disobedient watchdog, his gaze straying toward the motel room where, behind paper-thin walls, his prize lay guarded by a staunch-faced Sam Winchester armed with holy water, shotgun, and knife. "Not yet, anyway. Besides, if I _had_ taken him, whatever makes you think I'd have let him go?"

Dean felt the anger rising in his chest, deep and black. "Castiel is not your _pet_, you sick _fuck_." He wrenched away from the demon's hand, nearly banging his face against the sleek darkness of the Bentley, and bringing it back forward to glare down into the barrel of a gun. Not just any gun though, because he recognized the chamber and the barrel, the words _non timebo mala_ etched into metal, the envy of hunters everywhere and the stuff of legends until it had fallen, quite literally, into John Winchester's lap. Since then, it had been passed through the hands of humans and demons alike, and now it seemed like the latter had claim over the infamous Colt once again as _he_ sat here on his ass like an idiot, feet stretched out in front of him and hands spread out uselessly at his sides.

"I will fear no evil," Belial drawled aloud, reading the inscription with a definite air of amusement. "Yes, that's what David said too _before_ he saw the pretty woman bathing on the roof." Raising a hand, he knocked once on the glass window above Dean's head, clearly a signal to someone for some sort of action because then from the car emerged a dorky looking kid, twenty-something at best, wearing an ill-fitting doorman's uniform that looked like a secondhand mismatch of an outfit on his rail-thin frame. The sleeves cut off about an inch above the wrists and the chauffeur's cap he wore slid down over his ears; the hems of his trousers were mismatched and one dragged on the ground as he shuffled slowly forward.

"Lord?" he asked uncertainly, eyes bouncing back and forth between Belial and the elder Winchester. _Jesus, he sounds just like a kid too._

Belial waved a hand irreverently at the kid, and then at Dean. "Malthus, meet Dean Winchester, Righteous Man and vessel of Michael the archangel. Dean Winchester, meet my loyal hellhound and sacrificial demon number one." Spinning the revolver once around his finger, Hell's Second Prince extended the gun and fired once, signing his own death warrant without abandon.

The kid's eyes flickered black and his mouth dropped into a surprised 'o' shape as he dropped like a rock.

"Now then," the Lord of lust began, apparently satisfied with the ostentatious show. "What say I give you _this_," he spun the revolver around his finger once more and brought the barrel to his mouth, blowing away the smoke curling out into the air, "you take it to Lucifer, and empty it into his face." It wasn't a question or deal, but just short of an order, this take it or leave it offer that meant more to either party than mere words could've suggested. "Oh yes, and ammunition, of course. Free of charge."

There were a lot of things Dean might have said in a situation like this, with the Colt in his lap alongside a pouch filled with silver bullets, a lot of things he could've done. Like tell the demon to go to Hell or he could've emptied the gun in the bastard's smug face. But what came out instead was a questions that neither child nor aged philosopher had been able to answer since the invention of language. "Why?" _Why not?_ His mind immediately argued, but he wasn't about to make a deal (if that was what this was) without reading all the fine print. "Why are you suddenly being the bigger man?"

The demon shrugged, and it was the most oddly human gesture Dean had seen yet. "It's called 'I have my own reasons, none of which are any of your concern'." Belial paused then, and there was something about the sudden lines in his countenance, the bags under his eyes, and the lack of an 'old sport' or derisive 'boy' that made the hunter take note. That, and the cryptic bullshit.

_I have my reasons._

"Although…bigger man, hmm? Now there's an idea." Belial cocked his head in thought, and the smirk was back full force. "You think that'll have Cas screaming my name instead of begging for your sorry ass to save him?"

_Son of a- _By the time Dean got to his feet, Colt in hand, Hell's Second Prince had vanished.

* * *

_His physical form was weakening, his mental faculties slipping away and into the labyrinth of delirium brought on by the raging fever; his skin was hot to the touch although he shivered uncontrollably, moaning quietly in foreign tongues, some long dead and some that never existed at all. And it was in this way that a soldier of the Lord met his premature end – not engaged in battle, fighting fiercely alongside his kin in the name of righteousness or defending the barriers of the firmament, but lying upon unwashed sheets and thin mattress in a nameless motel on Earth, as a being more human than angel, a creature shamed by his disobedience, both defiled and disgraced. _

_At long last, his breath rattled once more in his borrowed lungs and the renegade's grace sputtered like a sparking star, fading quietly and without fanfare into bleak and ultimate darkness, from which there was no return. Not this time. Not one of his brothers or sisters was there with him when the angel ceased to exist and he died alone, abandoned by his family and helpless, uncared for by the Father whose will he sought to always abide by, unwanted by those he loved. _

_Heaven did not weep for him. _

_The vessel's body was reclothed in the familiar suit and blue tie, shrouded in the man's trench coat and then set aflame, a humble funeral pyre blazing on into the night, reducing it to a fine grey ash that soon covered the rest of the world as well, swirling through the smoke and screams as the Earth's soil seeped a sluggish crimson. The Pale Rider swept over the land, country by country and continent-by-continent, reaping the souls of countless waves that went after the felling of the first domino in this unstoppable chain reaction. After the demise of the angel of Thursday, the war that had been brewing dangerously underneath the surface erupted in an explosion of sterile faith and hope rendered useless. _

_Sam Winchester was torn apart cell by cell, his howls of agony echoing against the blood red skies as the soldiers of Heaven completely destroyed Lucifer's true vessel; Gabriel fell to his knees, the sword of Hell's Second Prince embedded in his throat, his fledgling's name the last bloodied gasp falling from the mouth of the Herald archangel of the Lord; a golden amulet fell from an unresponsive hand to be trampled underfoot in the mud. _

_And Michael's vessel did not say yes; he never said yes. Humanity wailed and screamed for a savior, and he didn't come. Dean Winchester simply stood aside and watched with dead eyes, watched the world burn, forever. _

The dark woman in the white chemise didn't even look up as the rain began to fall, the first droplet slipping down her cheek like a tear. She stood a silent pillar of infinite wisdom and vision, balancing there atop the mountain as a still figure against the skyline, slowly reaching up one hand to brush against the underside of the firmament in the same way she once grasped her younger brother's hand and helped him to do the same, remembering his laugh of unsurpassed joy and innocent wonder.

_The angel Castiel died on a Thursday, blank eyes devoid of life and staring up into the empty space at the missing Father who never answered his prayers, at the hunter who could not save him, at the brother who kept to his pact with the Great Deceiver and did not go to him. _

_In a rampage of vengeance and rage, the archangel Gabriel proved to be of more skill in the pursuit than Zachariah or the remainder of the Host could have ever been, swiping away Michael's vessel with one wing and vaporizing Lucifer's receptacle with one startling glance at his true form: six hundred silver wings radiating chaos and fury, ice and wind and lightening that no man could ever imagine, much less depict with brushstroke or pen. The Herald took it upon himself to be the agent of persuasion, casting the man into what could've been known as Heaven's prison and his silver eyes smoldered as he followed in stepping into the space, closing and sealing off the only entrance and exit behind his form. _

_Michael was granted his vessel not thirty minutes later. _

Her bare feet barely kicked up any dust at all as she walked in a slow circle around the deadened and parched piece of earth that was devoid of any and all life, and had been for thousands upon thousands of years. No matter what technology the agriculturalists whipped out, no matter how many times they tried to turn the soil or till the land. Some conspiracy theorists claimed that this patch of land was proof that extraterrestrials existed, for what else could've made scorched five inches into the soil that was blackened darker than volcanic ash and in the shape of two perfectly curved arches?

Perhaps an angel's wings burning and searing into the cinders of the sulfur and brimstone of Hell.

_Sam Winchester said yes in Detroit exactly three days after Castiel died. _

_A day later, Dean Winchester put a gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. The angels packed the right hemisphere of his brain back into his skull and brought him back. In the holding cell (with beer and burgers again, oh the irony), humanity's savior asphyxiated himself to death. The angels breathed into his nostrils and placed him under constant surveillance. Under the watchful eyes of Zachariah's subordinates, Michael's vessel grew creative and slit his own throat on the jagged pieces of a broken statuette of a porcelain angel. The angels mended the shorn jugular vein and sealed the wound shut. He smashed his skull against the wall, clawed out his eyes with his fingernails, broke his own spine, and tried every way imaginable to die, die, die. _

_The angels still brought him back. _

Ramiel's gaze was unblinking and yet focused as the angel of true vision viewed each of the possibilities for the future through a multi-faceted lens, each path producing contrasting outcomes and stretching outwards in all different directions, numbered one to infinity. Then slowly, slowly, she reached out a brown and slender arm, plucking one single golden strand from the fold and brought it to her chest, cradling it as a mother would a child. It was an act built entirely upon hope, because the Prophetess saw everything but could influence nothing, could only watch and pray for _this _to come to pass, thisprecarious selection of events put into place by one single choice.

"_Take me instead, Morningstar. Leave my brother be. Take me."

* * *

_

Castiel wasn't getting any better any time soon. In fact, he was getting a whole hell of a lot worse.

Counterintuitively, it actually wasn't really evident; the angel's rapid decline. There weren't any more visible physical changes, no emergencies that had to be addressed, no more bones to be broken (_thank God_; Sam was willing to say a small prayer of thanksgiving for that) – all in all, the next few days after the terrible-looking seizure passed in tense and uncomfortable silence, the stillness of impending death that was broken only by the harsh, ragged breathing coming from the bed and the occasional shift of a melting ice pack against overheated skin. Even the weather outside, for once at least, seemed to mirror the abysmal state of the crapper that the world had fallen into, with overcast skies heavy with the calm before the storm.

Sam Winchester was no fool, and he knew what that calm meant. He was wary of Belial's intentions, given that both of the Winchesters' brief histories with the demon weren't exactly spotless ones, but the fact that the Lord of lust had refrained from barging into the room and snatching Castiel away counted for something. Or, at least that's what Dean thought, because ever since recounting the less than pleasant rendezvous in hushed whispers – in which Sam nearly got punched when he stupidly said the demon's name a bit too loudly (he saw Dean's fist clench, he did) – the elder Winchester had been sitting at the small table, lips pressed into a thin line and with a permanent frown etched into his face as he turned the Colt over and over in his hands, examining the weapon he'd fired before, relearning its weight and pull and the way his fingers fit around the grip. Deciding.

And Sam trusted Dean's judgment.

He'd learned a long time ago not to underestimate his brother, because for all his jokes and jabs at being the smarter, older, and more experienced brother, Dean was indeed a phenomenal hunter, a good man, and far stronger than Sam could've ever been. In his own brief time away from the world of the living, the younger Winchester remembered nothing but darkness, an emptiness that had been vaguely peaceful and soothing until his brother made a deal with a crossroads demon and the rest, as they say, is history. Or…not really, given that the consequences from that were still in progress. But Sam knew his brother well enough to know that Dean was hiding something by the way he distanced himself from the angel in their care, in the way he flinched as if remembering something terrible, in the way he staunchly looked away whenever Castiel cried out when caught in a nightmare, leaving Sam to do his best to calm him down. And sure, sometimes it worked.

Other times, not so much.

"He asked for you again," he said flatly, pitching his voice in a low murmur so as not to wake the fitfully dozing angel, carefully closing the book on Enochian he'd been reading from_. More like prayed and pleaded for._ He pinned his brother with an even stare as Dean set the bags of greasy fast food on the table and nudged the door shut behind him. "Why don't you at least talk to him?"

"I did, Sam." Dean's reply was closely guarded and almost as robotic as his movements as he turned away.

"Preferably when he's awake," Sam snapped, suddenly impatient. "Look Dean, I don't know what happened yesterday, or what you saw through your bond with Cas, and I don't have to know." He took a deep breath, fingers tightening on the huge volume's spine. "But I do know that what you're doing right now, this- this forced separation, it's…it's just killing him faster."

"Leave it alone, Sam."

"Maybe if you just talked to him about whatever it was-"

"Leave it _alone,_" Dean interjected in the same quiet, firm tone laced with just the slightest hint of a warning that Sam always listened to, even when the Sasquatch used to be a skinny, short little kid with attitude issues the size of Lucifer's ego; it was the tone that always, _always_ made him balk and obey. Even if he ignored John's curt command, Sam always listened to his brother when Dean used that tone of voice. _C'mon, Sammy. Don't do this. Not now. Just leave it alone._

Sure enough, Sam pulled a bitchface of mixed concern and indignation before turning away with a huff, cracking open the friggin' ginormous textbook in his lap and beginning to read again, unconsciously and yet immediately reaching out to lay a huge hand on Castiel's shoulder when the angel keened suddenly, breathless and weak. "Ozazm vgeg on torzul, solpeth bien…" His voice was laced with frustration and he pronounced each foreign word with an underlying rhythm of _stupid, stupid, stupid. My brother is an idiot. _

Dean wasn't stupid.

He knew Sam was right. He wasn't deaf, dumb, or blind either; he'd heard Castiel crying into the pillow: soft, quiet sobs that made his heart hurt almost as much as the muffled, fervent pleas for _Dean, I'm sorry, Dean, please_; he'd seen the way the angel's head turned slightly whenever he heard Dean's voice, the faintest expression of hope mingled with fear upon his features, the fear of being rejected. Again. For something that wasn't his fault in the slightest and yeah, Dean felt like a heartless son of a bitch for running away like he had, but how was he supposed to have reacted? How would anyone else have reacted?

_I can't, Sammy. I'm sorry, Cas._ He couldn't talk to Castiel about what he'd seen. It was too hard to replay even in his own mind; it would be like rewatching it for the second friggin' time, after that bastard Belial had rifled through his memories and then proclaimed that he _hadn't_ done anything of the sort… And he hated leaving Castiel hanging with nothing to hold onto, but watch him go in with the best of intentions and then screw everything up and leave the angel even worse off. Just watch, because Dean Winchester wasn't the savior of mankind; he was a curse and a plague, a stigma to everything good and pure and holy because wasn't the angel who'd given up everything for his sake just the crown jewel in his treasure trove of fuck ups?

So, no. No, he wouldn't go within five feet of the angel, because it would most certainly be best for everyone if he stayed far, far away. And he did.

That is, until the morning they woke up to find the sheets spotted red from the streams of blood trickling from Castiel's ears, nose, and out of the corner of his mouth; his skin the jaundiced, sallow hue of pieces of parchment from the Middle Ages or something, all new frightening symptoms pointing to only one diagnosis – liver failure. The antibiotics weren't working, the infection had taken hold, and Castiel was going to die.

Two-by-four of idiocy, meet Dean Winchester's skull. Eighteen-wheeler of guilt and realization and regret? Meet Dean Winchester's gut.

Now, he found himself kneeling by the bedside of his deathly ill friend, one hand hovering hesitantly over the angel's shoulder. Sam had gone out to do whatever, muttering something under his breath about trying to make Castiel as comfortable as possible. That, or the younger Winchester had gone postal and was off trying to find a new liver on the black market or ebay. _Wouldn't put it past him. That kid knows how to get pretty much anything. _"Cas?" His hand finally descended lightly upon the back of the other's neck and Dean shook him, gently. "Cas."

He'd already had too many people die on his account. He wasn't about to let this one go just yet.

_C'mon man, wake up. _"Castiel?" He might as well have been saying _please _and hell, he was already on his knees, so why not? "_Cas_."

Castiel moaned, low and painful as his forehead, beaded in sweat, creased. A shudder ran through his frame and his fingers, curled loosely in the sheets, tightened with the heightened awareness of consciousness. His cracked lips parted and his eyes opened, discolored irises melting into the dilated pupils bright with fever. "Sam…" the angel more breathed than whispered, and Dean felt hot moisture stinging the corners of his eyes.

"No," he forced himself to say. "It's me, Cas. It's Dean."

Silence followed. "No, Lucifer," Castiel whispered at last, turning his face into the pillow, and Dean's chest clenched at the mix of wistfulness and confusion and soft pain on the angel's face before it was hidden. "I… I won't be deceived…again."

_Again? _The hunter's pulse jumped and immediately quickened at the thought, _God_, at the image of Cas huddled in a corner in a straightjacket or strapped to a bed, staring out blind and helpless as Lucifer bore down upon him, screwing with his head and he wanted to throw up. "Cas, it's me." He tried again, voice cracking pathetically. "I'm the one you gripped tight and raised from Perdition. When you found me in Hell, you touched me on the shoulder, _here_." With bated breath, he took a gamble and took Castiel's limp hand, placing the stiff fingers against the raised scar tissue of his own arm. "I fought you every step of the way up, screaming at you to let me go because I deserved to rot in Hell for what I'd done. But you didn't let me go." His voice was a wreck, hoarse and barely audible, but he continued. "You told me once that good things do happen. You helped me escape from Zachariah and save Sammy. You-" Dean laughed, short and sharp and halfway hysterical. "You pissed the hell out of a hooker named Chastity at a – what did you call it? – a _den of iniquity _that I took you to 'cause you're like…a freakin' forty-thousand year old virgin." _Maybe not anymore,_ his mind blared in obnoxious neon lights, but the elder Winchester ignored it. "You're my friend and…goddamn it Cas, you _remade _me. You know me." _Please. _

Castiel's fingers scrabbled clumsily at the hunter's arm; he'd turned his face back toward him and Dean knew he would never get used to that blank stare, but at least Cas had heard him. "_Dean?_" The angel's voice trembled. "You…you came back."

Forget the Apocalypse and the demons, forget the dicks with wings and the Devil – Dean Winchester was going to die from the disbelief and hope in this nearly broken angel's voice and fragmented sentences, because they _hurt_. "Yeah." He swallowed hard. "Yeah, I did."

"But…but you…" Christ, had Castiel's voice always been that small? "But you s-saw." There was a definite stutter, a hitching of breath faded with uncertainty and the fear of rejection, of the disgust and revulsion anticipated. "You _saw_, Dean."

He hesitated, but only for a moment. No need to be reminded of what he saw, but suddenly Dean realized that it didn't matter if it had happened or not, didn't matter what Belial professed to have or have not done. The only thing that mattered was that Castiel believed it did, and the angel needed him. "Yeah, I did." The angel flinched in response but Dean made no sudden movements, taking up the mantle of being the strong one, for once. "It's okay, Cas. I've got you."

Castiel was fading, his breathing become more ragged and his eyelids fluttered, heavily; his urgency however, overrode the rest of his temporary humanity. "Stay," he whimpered desperately, unable to expand beyond the current range of motion a broken clavicle and burning back would allow. "Please." The angel's fingers tightened pleadingly on the mark his own grace once seared and burned into human flesh. They wouldn't leave bruises this time though, not with such a weak grip. "Dean?_"_

"I'm here, Cas. I'm here." The elder Winchester encircled his fingers around Castiel's wrist; the angel's skin was too warm and Dean felt bones all too easily, rolling beneath his touch. But he stayed. _I promise. I'm here.

* * *

_

_**David Alexander Owens. **_

He heard the voice calling his name as if from the far end of a tunnel as he lay curled up within himself, trapped in a prison of burning light, too weak and exhausted from having thrown himself relentlessly against the walls to respond. There was a touch at his mind, prodding gently and he groaned quietly, curling tighter against the feeling. _No,_ he thought sluggishly, disoriented. _There was nothing left. There is nothing left. I don't want to go back. _

_**David, awaken.**_

There it was again, the presence that seemed closer to him than anything or anyone else had ever gotten and his eyes rolled in his skull as a soothingly cool hand passed over him, washing away the swipe of blanketing heaviness and drawing his consciousness back into clarity. For the first time in what felt like forever and an age, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes. Memories flooded back like a deluge. _Gabriel? _

_**Yes.**_The archangel's voice was resigned but resolved, weary but determined. David knew that tone anywhere, even when being used by the Herald of the Lord. It was the bugle sounding on the day of every soldier's funeral, the last order shouted out on the battlefield, a swan song of honor and in service to country and national pride. The only difference here though, was the fact that there was no such integrity or dignity coloring Gabriel's soul, and yeah, David knew all about that too.

_You've made up your mind._ There was no reply, only a sigh, deep and filled with conflict and suddenly, David was afraid. He'd never imagined what would come out of aiding an archangel in committing a sin and breaking a deal; truth be told, he was still a bit hazy on the concept of signing pacts with the deliverance of souls between angels and demons and humanity…the whole thing made his head spin. So he'd taken a liking to the little brother of the angel hitching a ride around inside his skin, and shot off his mouth without thinking. Honestly, who the hell was he to tell an archangel what to do? And now said archangel had listened to him. Wonderful. _So, this is it._ He swallowed nervously. Or…thought about doing so, anyway. _It is, isn't it?_

There was a moment of hesitation. Then, _**yes. **_A pause. _**Thou hast served Heaven well, Son of Adam. Thy work is done. Thou shalt be justly rewarded.**_

_Justly rewarded, huh?_ He tried not to imagine what that would be like. Who knew how or why he was so chill with being possessed by God's messenger archangel and yet still scared shitless at the thought of meeting his Maker. _That sounds…great. _

_**Be not afraid. **_

He almost laughed at that, huffing a breath of amusement. _What, you bring me good news of great joy? Sorry pal, don't think biology works that way. _

Gabriel's response was nothing so outwardly apparent, but David could've sworn…well, not to _God_, he didn't want to put his foot in his mouth if he was _this close_ to meeting the Big Guy Himself, but still. He could've sworn that the archangel rearranged the muscles he wore into some semblance of a smile. _**Thou art pure of heart, David. The Almighty shalt find thy soul worthy. **_

_Yeah? _He could almost believe it. Almost. _And what about you? What're you going to do?_ The unspoken inquiry hung in the space between human soul and archangel's grace, thick fog in the subconscious of the mind- what would happen to the one who dared to go back upon his word in a deal with the Devil? _Gabriel? _

_**What I must. **_Steady and calm. _**Thou art my true vessel, Son of Adam. Thou understandeth well. **_

He did. From the deepest parts within his mind and soul, David understood why it all had to come down to this, why he'd been chosen, why he felt such a close connection to this angel that he had never met, why he felt so much for this little brother Castiel. _You… _And here he'd thought that angels were all righteous smiting and destruction as ordered from Above. _I…_ He didn't know what to say. What was there to say? He'd had brothers in arms before, but he'd never been blessed with a sibling to raise or protect, to love with all of himself. Yet Gabriel did, this great archangel of the Lord who had served and obeyed, battled and lost – they were both soldiers, and that was something David could understand. _You really do love your little brother, don't you. _

He understood sacrifice.

_**Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends,**_ came the reply, practiced words having already been spoken a thousand times but only now understood, only now made to have meaning in context and personal connection. And before he faded completely into the unintelligible swirl of peaceful emptiness, David strained his ears and heard the Herald of the Lord saying softly, so softly that he could barely hear- _**And this is how we know what love is: to lay down our lives for our brothers…

* * *

**_

It was raining in his mind and perhaps outside the realm of his imaginings and nightmares as well, cool droplets falling from the sky in pinpricks that pounded on his hot skin, offering momentary relief. He tried to move toward the feel, because maybe God was in the rain, maybe the archangel who presided over the dominion of water was here, laying cool hands against the sides of his face and speaking to him through the sharp _plit plit plat _of moisture against his face, his head, his eyes. Maybe his brother had finally come to take him Home.

_**Castiel**__, he heard whispered into his ear, a gentle call of familiarity and he would have raised his head if he had not been so weak. Alastair's cruel devices had taken their toil on his soul and he had hidden his grace tightly away for the sake of survival, desperate self-preservation as not to be the cause of losing another seal. After six dawns and six hours, he could stand a soldier no longer and merely lay there in his brother's arms, exhausted and spent but safe. The gently pattering rain that fell from the other's wings washed away the blood from his vessel's torn flesh until the pain faded, faded into the brilliant light and majesty of Heaven. __**Brother mine, be not afraid. Thou art safe.**_

"Sam, I said _no_."

"Dean, we may not have any other choice. The morphine…I mean, an overdose would be painless-"

"You want to be the one to put the needle in his arm? _I'm_ NOT going to kill Cas."

_**RELEASE THY HOLD, **__the archangel roared, more power and might than actual voice and the demon faded into black smoke, a quivering ball of terror as he released the fledgling, realizing too late that this lesser angel was the favored little brother of the Herald who sat at the left hand of the Throne. The skies shivered and split open as enormous silver wings pushed aside the clouds, as arms stretched outwards to catch the wounded angel, reaching up to shelter the shivering fledgling from the storm. _

Thunder cracked across the sky and he instinctively trembled, the shudder moving through him like a tightly coiled spring unloosening for one instant to shoot tendrils of dull pain across his consciousness and he could feel his lips parting slightly, letting fall an incomprehensible word, a garbled mess of a language even he didn't know. The rain was no longer on or around him and he was moving now, moving but yet stationary at the same time, lying near a warmth that was welcoming; he tried to move toward it and felt the warmth encircle him in a steady embrace.

"Cas? Hey, shhh. It's alright. You're okay. We're just getting on the road again. Church. It's Sunday, Cas. We're taking you to Church."

"…how is he, Dean?"

Gentle fingers carded through his hair, coolness sweeping across his forehead. _Father? Brother Gabriel?_ Who else could it be, to hold him with such kindness? Blindly, he leaned into the touch-

_**How now, brother? **__The archangel pulled back and smiled fondly down at the fledgling, brushing away all memories and fears of Belial's rage with a single hand, his grace enveloping and enfolding the lesser angel with light. He began to move away, silently allowing the other follow and was but five paces away when he felt a slight tug at the very tip of a single pinion feather – young Castiel was trailing behind, face set with determination but utterly unable to keep pace with his small, furiously fluttering wings. The Herald's warm laughter echoed throughout Heaven and from the other side of the hallowed halls of the Lord the angel of joy heard and smiled, smiled radiance as Gabriel extended his hand toward his little brother: __**Come.**_

"Not good, Sammy." Dean's voice was hoarse and the rain that pounded down on the roof of the car like bullets combined with the swish of the windshield wipers drowned out his reply. Castiel's head was heavy in his lap, his dark hair damp with sweat and his skin was bright red as if he'd spent one too many hours out in the sun; it felt like a furnace, burning his body up from the inside, where the infection ravaged and rampaged.

The Impala's jolted to and fro a bit because the backroads leading to all points nowhere weren't exactly paved smooth (so it was a Monday and they weren't really on their way to a Church; what was one more lie?); a back tire sunk into and jerked back out of a pothole and Castiel moaned quietly, twitching once before going still. His sluggish pulse jumped underneath Dean's fingers, blood pumping against vessel walls for once more with great effort…and then no more.

_Oh no. Oh…oh no. No, no, no._ "Sammy, pull over! PULL OVER!"

_He could feel his brother drawing near, could feel like the air seeping into his lungs and the pain ebbing away, slipping away slowly; he barely felt it when the movement stopped and the frantic hold around him pulled him out into the rain again. There were voices, thick and loud and cloying that hovered all about him and tried to pull him back; he ignored them and drifted onwards, towards the pull of Home, and he could almost hear the chorus of the voices of the Host again, and it was beautiful- _

_Yitgaddal veyitquaddash shmeh rabba be'alma dir a khir'uteh…_

"CAS!" He hollered desperately, one fist beating against the angel's chest, blinking out the rain that fell into his eyes as it pounded on Castiel's still, unresponsive face; on Sammy's hulking figure as the Sasquatch moved to support their friend's lolling head and shaking his head to signal _no breathing_; into the half-lidded, purple-black darkness of Castiel's eyes and Dean bowed over the body of his one and only friend in the middle of a muddy field fifty miles from nowhere, screaming full-throated into the heart of the storm, choking on rage and tears and disbelief- "_CAS!" _

Castiel was dead. An angel had died in his arms, literally. No more badass soldier of the Lord on their side, no more head tilt of befuddled confusion, no more social awareness of a toaster wrapped up inside a trench coat, no more steely sapphire gaze that stripped away all the bullshit with just a glance, no more cryptic talk, no more holding the stupid FBI badge upside down, no more _Cas_; he was dead-dead-dead-

_Dean._

Even in the midst of the eye of what seemed to be a hurricane-tornado lovechild going on both inside his head and out, he heard it, heard the sound of a voice calling out his name inside his mind and looked up. He looked up into the face of an archangel whose vessel looked every bit as drenched as any other human being, grey eyes blinking against the rain that ran in rivulets down his face, soaking his hair to his skull and down his fingers as he held out his arms, the universal gesture for _give me_, a command that needed no words or persuasion. _Give him to me. _

Wordlessly, the hunter obeyed.

_Castiel_. Patient, gentle, and filled with understanding, the archangel called out to the little brother cradled in his arms, heedless of the consequences. _Castiel, heed my voice and awaken._

Lightening.

Thunder.

Chaos.

And wind, whirling sheets of ice, white light and in the midst of it, six hundred silver wings unfurling to curl around the limp body of Gabriel's beloved fledgling, forcibly and violently pushing away the crowding shadows of impending death with a violent declaration of _**THOU SHALT NOT TAKE HIM**_ that shattered the heavens and the earth. A hand passed over Castiel's chest, calloused fingers for one brief, blinding moment transformed into flaming tongues of white fire and latching onto something deep within – the body arched upwards with a gasp, eyes slamming open and shining beams of pure grace as two wings shot out into the visible plane-

From beside him, Sam was on his knees at the sight, fingers digging into the dirt and slack-jawed, tears rolling down his face because this was what the younger Winchester had faith in, this was what he'd been praying to for all these years. He'd always been the one with faith in hope and mercy and unconditional love, and Dean vaguely remembered that Sam had never before seen an angel's wings before he realized that he was crying too.

Reborn anew, the angel turned eyes of the purest blue upon his elder brother and reached up, simply a newly created angel among the multitudes. This one was another star in the heavens of no particular use except that one of his elder brothers reached out with his grace and chose him, except that an archangel let young Castiel bury his face in his neck and spoke into his ear as he held him tight, except that Gabriel placed a kiss and blessing and plea for forgiveness upon his fledgling's brow.

_I love thee, little brother. _

A golden trinket, faded and ugly next to the white light that enveloped it, passed from archangel to brother, and then, he _pushed_, sending his little brother and the vessels of Heaven's General and Hell's Sovereign away-

-as Lucifer stepped onto the field, come to collect his due. "Gabriel."

The Herald turned, brilliant light vanished. The grey sky wept as the archangel faced his former brother and dropped to his knees before the Great Deceiver, arms spreading wide as his mouth moved in supplication, head bowed in submission, crucified upon a deal with the Devil: "_Take me instead, Morning Star. Leave my brother be. Take me." _

"Very well."

The Earth opened up to bare the gates of the Pit and YAHWEH's messenger and voice was forever silenced save for the echo that would resound like a faded scream, a wordless plea throughout Hell for all of eternity – that, _that_ was the cost of reunion, of accord – the measures of reconciliation.

* * *

The soot and ash blackened her skin and penetrated through the thin cotton of the clothing she wore, seeping into the whiteness of the fabric as she walked slowly through the remnants of the wings of the Herald archangel of the Lord, face downcast and eyes hidden. A gust of wind swept across the charred plain, swirling up the evidence of a brother's sacrifice – and the woman in white waved a hand, stilling the breeze immediately. Slowly, slowly, she knelt down in the ruin, brushing a slender hand against the indented earth, sifting the cinders through her fingers.

"Hello, sister. Did you come to bid our brother goodbye?"

Ramiel did not answer, her vessel's lips sealed tightly shut as she pressed the pads of her fingers against the scorch marks; they still burned with power and energy beneath her touch. A whisper of movement whirled about her crouched form and then a pair of dark brown boots moved into her line of vision, stopping inches away from her hands. Their tops were worn with age and dusty, covered with the ash so heedlessly kicked up and about. "Why so despondent, Ramiel?" Lucifer asked, his voice ringing with subdued amusement and condescension. "You had already seen it."

There was the unmistakable crack of a whip striking the air and then the angel was resonating an energy that had nothing to do with glory or righteousness or the will of the Almighty as she stood glaring full into the face of the Son of Perdition, unblinking gaze steeped with intensity not to be taken lightly. "I have seen many things, Lucifer." Ramiel's voice was cold, so cold. "Many paths, many futures, and many ends. I have seen both the triumphs of Heaven and the failures of man, all roads leading to this moment and beyond." She leaned in close, a woman beautiful and terrible in the quiet fury, the angel of joy darkening the entirety of Creation with her frightening anger. "So boast not, _serpent_, for you know not as much as you believe."

Lucifer inclined his head a fraction of an inch in mock affront. "Don't be angry with me, Ramiel." He reached out to settle a hand on the other's shoulder; she gracefully turned away, moving out of arm's length. "You," the Devil continued smoothly, "out of all of the Host, you my sister, should understand the love for God with which I chose to rebel-"

She laughed; a tiny scoffing trill filled with such indescribable sadness that it could barely be considered a noise of joy. "You _lie_. You don't know what love is." Ramiel lifted her gaze and looked out over the place of her brother's death. "It is what drove Gabriel to this sacrifice for his brother – his love for Castiel." She turned back to the one whom she once also loved, her former brother. "But you already knew it would, did you not?" Tears, hot and angry, were gathering in her vessel's eyes, accusing. "And that is why you struck the bargain in the first place. To bring down one of the most powerful of the Host."

"Still as astute as ever, dear sister." He touched her face gently, and caught a tear on the edge of his thumb, wiping it away.

Her lips trembled and she closed her eyes, painfully bringing up a hand to knock the other's away. "You are no brother of mine, Abbadon."

Lucifer smiled, serene and understanding, as beautiful as the great Morning Star had once been. "Foolish little sister," he murmured. "You are indeed a spirited one."

Ramiel's grace flared. "I do not fear you."

"No?" Darkness and light melded together, evil crowding in upon righteousness, a man's thumb bracing against a woman's trachea, threatening to snuff out the joy of Heaven. "And why is that?"

"For I have also seen your demise, Light Bearer." Ramiel was weak, but joy and truth are powerful things, and the angel's grace burned and burned and _burned_, hot and strong. "I saw how you fell from Heaven, Star of the Morning, and I have seen your undoing a second time by Michael's sword."

Lucifer's smile was nothing so beautiful or placid now; it curved into a mocking sneer, dark and ugly. His hold tightened and rose upwards, lifting the other clear off the ground. "Have you now?"

"Destroy me if you wish." Ramiel lifted her chin defiantly. "But you remember this moment, _brother._" The word was more spat in disgust than spoken, all former traces of longing for peace and oneness of the family they once shared now dissipated. "Remember that I have seen the face of the man who strikes you down – and he is a Righteous Man." Her voice dropped to a whisper, promise and threat combined and in that one instant, the angel of true vision looked the cool confidence, the arrogance, and the deceit – and saw uncertainty, hesitance, and what may or may not have been fear.

"When you are cast down into the eternal fire, you think back upon what your foolish little sister prophesized, and you _remember._"

_A/N: Um…right. That's it, pretty much. Please drop a review! _

_Scripture used in this chapter: John 15:13 and 1 John 3:16_

_Translations: Yitgaddal veyitquaddash shmeh rabba be'alma dir a khir'uteh… (Beginning of the Kaddish, the Hebrew prayer for the Dead) and in Enochian- _

_Ozazm vgeg on torzul, solpeth bien: Make me strong in your strength, hearken unto my voice_


	16. Epilogue

_A/N: Here we are, at the epilogue of what has been a fantastic journey for (I hope) all of us. I'd like to thank EVERYONE for your reviews; for pointing out my mistakes and what I could improve upon as well as the uplifting encouragement. Enjoy! _

_Disclaimer: Supernatural belongs to Eric Kripke, but these versions of Gabriel, Belial, and Ramiel belong to me_

_Several months later_

When the Great Oppressor appeared before the Lord in His court, he who is called the Father of all lies and Satan the Adversary of all prompted the Almighty to test a servant faithful and blameless, upright and loyal in all his ways. God agreed, and thus allowed Lucifer to do as he wished, so long as he spared the life of his servant Job; later this story would become a lesson of morality and patience for the generations, encouragement for the everyday man and woman undergoing trials and tribulations of the mind, body, and soul. What was there to fear with the God of Heaven and Earth there to intercede upon our behalf? All things were possible, no pain too great to bear, no burden too great to shoulder with a Heavenly Father there to guide and protect, to comfort and save.

Except when He wasn't.

"_Lucifer." _

"_So I take it you're here with the Winchesters." _

"…_I came alone." _

Job spoke into a storm and a whirlwind, calling out to He who sat upon the Throne of Judgment, and demanded an explanation for the ills impressed upon him without just cause. He had called, raged, questioned, and in the end, received an answer and many blessings for his loyalty and faith.

"_Loyalty. Such a nice quality in this day and age." _

But he never stood in a circle of holy oil and gazed fearfully upon the face of his tormentor – never mind that this was not Lucifer's true face; Castiel had seen the face of the Morning Star in all his terrible and great beauty, all the glorious light that was now shrouded behind a layer of peeling and decaying epidermal cells that couldn't possibly contain the unholy flames of smoldering grace. In the halls of Heaven, the fledgling had only seen this particular glorious older brother's visage from afar, sometimes shielding himself with his own wings because the face of the brightest and most beautiful of the Host had always appeared surprisingly cold to the lesser angel, powerful yet colorless eyes and cool, multi-faceted grace tightening his soul in fear before Castiel even knew of the emotion or the word.

"Come now, Castiel. I'm not here to harm you." Lucifer spread his hands genially, stepping out of the darkness of the shadowed corner. "I just want to talk."

"_Castiel?" The gentle and familiar tendrils of grace reached out to the lesser angel who stood wrapped in his own wings, shaking as the halls of the Lord still shook with the ferocity of the latest disagreement between Michael and Lucifer. The voices of both archangels thundered through the firmament without restraint but upon hearing his own name among the controlled chaos (for nothing ever truly amounted to pandemonium in Paradise), the fledgling's grace loosened from its tightly curled knot of tension. He practically launched himself at his brother, gripping tightly to Gabriel's billowing robes with trembling fingers as he sought out the other's warm affection and solid, sure protection against the harshness of brotherly discord. _

_There was a sigh, and the Herald drew his little brother close, letting Castiel shiver in his strong embrace, still such a small, new soul who understood not the complex dynamics between the Morning Star and the Prince of the Host. "Oh, young one," Gabriel murmured quietly, a whisper of comfort meant for his fledgling alone. "Be not afraid of thy brothers." The archangel lightly rested a wing against his little brother's back, holding him securely. "Lucifer means thou no harm." _

_Gabriel was the intermediary between the members of the Host, the voice of reason and harmony alongside being the messenger of the Lord, a genuine harbinger of peace in the Heavens as well as upon Earth. Upon those occasions before the Fall, it always fell upon the Herald to go forth in attempts to pacify the dispute between his brothers – after spiriting his fledgling away from the clash, first. Well respected and a figure of quiet authority, the one who sat at the left hand of the Throne settled disagreements with words of wisdom and reconciliation, standing as a pillar of strength to restore order and balance. _

_Or…rather, used to be. _

"I have not fallen to your temptations, Lucifer." Castiel surprised himself by keeping his vessel's vocal chords from vibrating together and refraining from letting the tongue slip in outward shows of fear. He stood taller, shoulders squaring and making sure to keep in the center of the ring of sanctified flame. "And I won't believe your lies now."

"Castiel." The Devil tutted, shaking his head in disapproval, and somehow managing to stretch out and distort the other's very name, the name that had once been stolen from him and replaced with the basest of cruelties: the name of an angel exchanged for that of a demon's. _Leonard of the nocturnal orgies. Pretty boy angel. Little soiled dove._ Slowly, languidly, Lucifer began to walk a slow circle around the path marked by a circular stream of holy oil, connecting and binding and imprisoning. "I don't understand why you're fighting me, of all the angels."

Castiel started; perhaps from shock or from being caught off guard in annoyance. "You really have to ask?" The unspoken words hung heavy in the air between them, mingling with the aromatic blend of spices and oil that blazed as the Bush once flamed without being scorched, as the lamps in Solomon's majestic Temple stayed lit for twelve days and twelve nights, as the screams and rancid stench of blood mingled together in the burning of Jerusalem. _You captured and tormented me, tempted me and nearly ended my existence. You are the Son of Perdition and the Deceiver of All, the Prince of Darkness – and I will not submit to you. _

Lucifer heard these words well enough. Dear Castiel, he might have seemed as stoic and emotionless to the limited perceptions of humans (those oblivious creatures of dirt), but he could read the lesser angel's soul like an open book, so they said. And as of right now, the pages of the other's novel were stained red with affliction and had been tattered and torn, symbols and characters worn away with lack of care and abuse. It would be wise to start off easy, lest the fragile binding fall to pieces to soon.

"Everything I did was to help train you, brother," he began softly. "To help you see the truth." At Castiel's signature head-tilt of confusion, the lines between his eyebrows deepening in proportion with his growing confusion, Lucifer had to bite back a chuckle, although he allowed himself a dignified smile of pity mingled with persuasion. Had young Castiel always been this much like a lost little sheep, with no shepherd to guide him Home. "You don't belong with them, Castiel. You know that. Deep down inside, you've always known that. We are not so different, you and I."

_He lies._ Castiel could feel his vessel's pulse hammering double-time, skeletal muscles contracting as the body's endocrine system unleashed a flood of hormones demanding a fight or flight response, neither of which he was able to perform at the moment. His wings, both wholly restored by the powerful healing touch of an archangel, were held in close to his grace that was rapidly expanding and turning in upon itself in the presence of such unrighteousness.

The eyes of Lucifer's vessel were pale blue, but they gleamed yellow in the firelight, a feral and primal grace evident in the way he moved around the ring of fire, a predator stalking his prey. "I rebelled, I was cast out; you rebelled you were cast out. Almost all of Heaven wants to see me dead and if they succeed, guess what?" His voice dropped, low and serious and one of calm coercion. "You're their new public enemy number one."

_Public enemy number one._ He didn't understand the idiomatic allusion, but Lucifer's meaning was clear, and Castiel's throat tightened; his gaze strayed to the floor at the truth.

"_Brother?" The archangel glanced down at the small bundle of grey feathers and sapphire blue eyes and beautiful hope-faith-love tugging gently at the end of one silver wing. Ramiel stood a short distance away, her grace glowing with encouragement, and Castiel glanced upwards hopefully, ever the curious little soul. Usually he always went to his sister with questions, but this time, the angel of joy had suggested asking the Herald, for surely he would know. "Gabriel?"_

"_Yes, little one?" And suddenly he was all bashful silence, tongue-tied in shyness, but he wished to know the answer to the question so very much. Gabriel's soul glimmered with gentle amusement and affection though, as the illustrious archangel actually lowered himself to the level of the fledgling, reaching out with one pinion feather to brush away a wayward wisp of cloud from the lesser angel's earnest gaze. "Thou may speak freely, Castiel." _

"_Am I…" the lesser angel hesitated. "Am I important to Heaven?"_

_It was a foolish question indeed, Castiel decided not a moment later when his elder brother swept him up in a whirlwind of silver wings and endearment. Who needed to be the focus of the Host when one already had the love of his brother? _

Lucifer smiled, the frightening sight of a spider's elegance before it descended to wrap the unsuspecting fly in its webbing, the flash of a serpent's fangs before it struck. "We're on the same side, like it or not." His head tilted in contemplation and his shoulders came up in a half-shrug of nonchalance. "So why not just serve your own best interest, which, in this case happen to be mine…"

He left the end of the sentence hanging, an intentional flaw in the otherwise carefully prepared speech. Castiel looked up steadfastly, his gaze sharpening and glinting with both strength and determination. He drew his resolve from the light of his Father's Creation all around him, from the spark of Ellen's protectiveness and Jo's carefree smile that reminded him so much of his sister Ramiel, from the earnest words of the forgiven younger Winchester who stayed at his bedside and comforted him in the language of the angels, from the words of the Righteous Man for whom he relinquished everything, _this is worth dying for_ – "I'll die first."

"…I suppose you will." The fallen archangel tilted his head, eyes narrowed as if inspecting a particularly fascinating and perplexing specimen underneath a microscope. "What a peculiar thing you are."

Castiel's wings jerked sharply in an abortive movement to flee the heaviness of the scrutiny of the Angel of the Bottomless Pit; he pulled them closer within his vessel upon instinct, for once thankful that he had learned at least one human mannerism from the Winchester brothers: the fine art of changing the subject when the conversation (or interrogation, actually, in this case) had gone askew. "What's wrong with your vessel?" His voice was quiet and unsure, just another _crack-pop-hiss_ in the flames.

The other's eyebrows arched, either surprised that the straight-shooting little soldier had actually made an attempt to divert the conversation, or in the way someone usually reacted when reminded of something they would much rather forget. "Yes…Nick is wearing a bit thin, I'm afraid." Lucifer's mouth quirked upward slightly, knowingly, as if sharing a private joke. "He can't contain me forever."

The insinuation was well understood, but apparently not the part about it being a joke because then Castiel's anger _blazed_. "_You_-" he spat out, a rush of emotion connected with the remembrance of a large calloused hand, unusually gentle as it settled upon his injured shoulder or replaced a cool towel across the back of his neck, mind flooding with the image of a wide-eyed Sam – so different from the dangerous boy with the demon blood who had destroyed Alastair – and the sound of a voice stumbling over the unfamiliar syllables of Enochian, but comforting all the same. _You will not harm him, for he is a good man. He is my friend._

Lucifer seemed amused as he watched Castiel halt abruptly, remembering not one moment too late the impenetrable barrier laid down between fallen archangel and nearly fallen little brother. "You are _not_ taking Sam Winchester," He growled, low in the back of his throat. "I won't let you."

It sounded dangerously like a promise.

"Such fortitude." Lucifer clicked his tongue. "I admire that in you, Castiel." He waved his hand, in the manner of someone trying to recall a particularly interesting yet useless fact. "Of course, it seems you learned that from Gabriel as well."

"Do not speak of my brother." Each word was tightly clipped and measured, bitten off with an odd little rhythm with pauses allotted for breath and the inevitable hard swallow, as if deviating from this pre-recorded chant would result in a loss of nerve, in a breakdown.

"Why not?" Lucifer stepped closer, a hint of something dark and ugly lighting up his features in a smile. "Don't you want to hear of why he wouldn't heed your cries for help?"

"Stop."

"Your brother made a deal, Castiel. With me. He authorized and permitted your torment."

"Stop this."

"Do you know why, though?" The toes of his vessel's boots were lined up with the furthermost edge of the ring of holy oil now, in preparation for leaping in for the kill. "It was to save you." Here, Castiel's eyes narrowed, searching out the blunt statement for any shred of falsehood. "But Gabriel loved his fledging so very much that he couldn't bear to see you suffer so he broke the pact, offering himself in your stead." Goodness though, was it a mirage of the heat, or were those tears? Lucifer paused, considering. Perhaps the other was still too fragile from his previous period of torment. It surely wouldn't do to break Castiel even before he could be of use. "Now the mighty Herald sits not at the left hand of the Throne, but engulfed in the flames of Perdition-"

"_Enough._" There was a crackle of the fire and singing of the edge of a dark tan trench coat before Lucifer raised a hand, effortlessly knocking Castiel back into the center of the ring and away from the flames, away from where the lesser angel had leapt forward heedlessly, his voice shaking with rage. "That is _enough_."

"Tell me something, Castiel. How have these past few months been without your loving brother here to protect you?" Lucifer examined something on his vessel's hand, distastefully flicking at another patch of stretched-thin, peeling skin. "Heaven has mourned the loss of its Herald. Have you?"

_Crackle-hiss-pop_, went the flames in the sudden silence. "Do you really think our Father would have allowed for this?"

From the end of the corridor came the clipping of high-heeled boots against the floor and the demon girl Meg entered, a pleased smile upon her face as she approached her lord and father – and within the circle of holy, sanctified flame, the imprisoned angel hid his sorrow and inwardly wept for his loss.

"_Have faith. The Lord shat always guide thee, Castiel. Nothing shalt ever distance ye from the grace of our Father, nor from my love, my little brother."

* * *

_

Castiel was different now.

Not that he hadn't always been different before; in fact if one looked up the dictionary's definition of "odd" or any variation of such including but not limited to "unusual", "weird", "socially awkward with no conception of humor or personal space", one would probably see _synonyms: Castiel, angel of the Lord. _And really though, how many times could you almost die and come back unchanged?

It wasn't just a physical or notable change, both Winchester brothers realized. Sure, their friend was up on his feet and back to being the badass angel of the Lord he'd always been – but there was a haggard look he'd worn since the three of them plus the Imapala landed some _x_ miles away from the epicenter of where an archangel had touched down to heal his little brother, a weary expression tinged with such loneliness that it would've melted a heart of stone. It was there when he wasn't too busy being a silent, steadfast soldier gone for longer and longer periods of time, relentlessly resuming his search for his Father as if to make up for the time and a brother lost.

All three of them had seen the explosion: Sam still swallowing down tears, Dean stoic-faced and speechless because he understood the sacrifice, Castiel clinging to both hunters on wobbly knees, his first sight after being called back from the jaws of Death yet again and after his vision restored being his elder brother's death. Sometimes the elder Winchester would even dream (_have nightmares_) about the sight-

_A hapless vessel jerked up into midair as shafts of innumerable light surrounded and shot through his form; the man's head thrown back and from his throat-eyes-nose exploding energy as his arms were jerked up in a crude imitation of Christ on the cross: lay down one's life for one's brother; believe me you will be with me in Paradise…_

-and then he would wake up in yet another random motel room, push away the scratchy sheets and sit up to find Castiel in the corner of the room. There would be no _what were you dreaming about _this time, because the angel knew. Cas always knew.

And although the angel had made known his gratefulness for Sam and Dean, the both of them knew that it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. _They_ would never be able to erase the hunted look on their friend's features, the countenance that looked like someone had ripped all the steel out of him and replaced it with imitation strength, sparking dangerously and fraying at the ends, just waiting to unravel and crumble and break.

_A/N: Wow. You guys, I can't believe it. It's finally done. Thank you once again, ALL OF YOU (I wish I could name names, but that would take forever and an age) for your continued support. I believe this has been the longest fic I've ever attempted, and I hope it's been as wonderful for you guys as it has been for me. As for what's going to come next? I believe I'm going to take one reviewer's advice and wait to see how the end of the season is going to play out before drafting a sequel (which may or may not be the last installment in the 'Six Dawns' series). In the meantime, I think I might take a break for a week or two, before coming back with a one-shot or two. We'll see what happens, so pitch me a few ideas (as many as you want, really) and I might decide to work with yours! _

_Happy Easter! _


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